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THE WRECK 
OF EUROPE 





FRANCESCO NITTI 



THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

{L'EuTopa Senza Pace) 

FRANCESCO NITTI 

Former Prime Minister of It?lv 



PORTRAIT FRONTISPIECE 



/ca 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MEEKILL COMPANf 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1922 
By The Bobbs-Meeeill Company 



^ 



IK 



Printed in the United States of America 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH «. CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 






PREFACE 

In this book are embodied the ideas which, as a parlia- 
mentarian, as head of the Italian Government, and as a 
writer, I have upheld with firm conviction during the last 
few years. 

I Delieve that Europe is threatened with decadence 
more owing to the Peace Treaties than as a result of the 
war. She is in a state of daily increasing decline, and 
the causes of dissatisfaction are growing apace. 

Europe is still waiting for that peace which is not yet ef- 
fective, and it is necessary that the public should be made 
aware that the courses now being followed by the policy of 
the great victorious states are perilous to the achievement 
of serious, lasting and useful results. I believe that it is 
to the interest of France herself if I speak the language 
of truth, as a sincere friend of France and a confirmed 
enemy of German imperialism. Not only did that im- 
perialism plunge Germany into a sea of misery and suf- 
fering, covering her with the opprobrium of having pro- 
voked the terrible war, or at least of having been mainly 
responsible for it, but it has ruined for many years the 
productive effort of the most cultured and industrious 
country in Europe. 

Some time ago the Ex-president of the French Kepublie, 
R. Poincare, after the San Remo Conference, apropos of 
certain differences of opinion which had arisen between 
Lloyd George and myself on the one hand and Millerand on 
the other, wrote as follows: 



PREFACE 

"Italy and England know what they owe to France,, 
just as France knows what she owes to them. They do 
not wish to part company with us, nor do we with them. 
They recognize that they need us, as we have need of 
them. Lloyd George and Nitti are statesmen too shrewd 
and experienced not to understand that their greatest 
strength will always lie in this fundamental axiom. On 
leaving San Remo for Rome or London let them ask the 
opinion of the 'man in the street.' His reply will be: 
^Avant tout, restez unis avec la France.' " 

I believe that Lloyd George and I share the same cor- 
dial sentiments toward France. We have gone through so 
much suffering and anxiety together that it would be im- 
possible to tear asunder chains firmly welded by common 
danger and pain. France will always remember with a 
sympathetic glow that Italy was the first country which 
proclaimed her neutrality, on August 2, 1914; without 
that proclamation the destinies of the war might have 
taken a very different turn. 

But the work of reconstruction in Europe is in the in- 
terest of France herself. She has hated too deeply to 
render any sudden cessation of her hatred possible, and the 
treaties have been begotten in rancor and applied with 
violence. Even as the life of men, the life of peoples has 
days of joy and days of sorrow: sunshine follows the 
storm. The whole history of European peoples is one of 
alternate victories and defeats. It is the business of 
civilization to create such conditions as will render victory 
less brutal and defeat more bearable. 

The recent treaties which regulate, or are supposed to 
regulate, the relations among peoples are, as a matter of 
fact, nothing but a terrible regress, the denial of all those 
principles which had been regarded as an inalienable con- 
quest of public right. President Wilson, by his League of 



PREFACE 

Nations, has been the most responsible factor in setting up 
barriers between nations. 

Christopher Columbus sailed from Europe hoping to 
land in India, whereas he discovered America. President 
Wilson sailed from America thinking that he would bring 
peace to Europe, but he succeeded in bringing her only con- 
fusion and war. 

However, we should judge him with the greatest in- 
dulgence, for his intentions were undoubtedly sincere and 
honest. 

France has more to gain than any other country in 
Europe by reverting to those sound principles of democ- 
racy which constituted her former glory. We do not for- 
get what we owe her, nor the noble spirit which pervades 
some of her historic deeds. But noblesse oblige, and all 
the more binding is her duty to respect tradition. 

When France shall have witnessed the gradual unfold- 
ing of approaching events, she will be convinced that he 
who has spoken to her the language of truth and has 
sought out a formula permitting the peoples of Europe to 
rediscover their path in life, toward life, is not only a 
friend, but a friend who has opportunely brought back to 
France's mind and heart the deeds of her great ances- 
tors at the time when fresh deeds of greatness and glory 
await accomplishment. The task which we must under- 
take with our inmost feeling, with all the ardor of our 
faith, is to find once more the road to peace, to utter the 
word of brotherly love toward oppressed peoples, and to 
reconstruct Europe, which is gradually sinking to the 
condition of the Italy of the fifteenth century, without its 
effulgence of art and beauty: thirty states mutually 
suspicious of one another, in a sea of programs and Balkan 
i ideas. 



PEEFACE 

Toward the achievement of this work of civilization the 
great democracies must march shoulder to shoulder. At 
the present moment I hear nothing but hostile voices; but 
the time is not far distant when my friends of France will 
be marching with us along the same road. They already 
admit in private many things which they will presently 
be obliged to recognize openly. Many truths are the fruit 
of persuasion; others, again, are the result of corrected 
delusions. 

I place my greatest trust in the action of American de- 
mocracy. 

By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all 
the other peace treaties, the American Senate has given 
proof of the soundest political wisdom: the United States 
of America has negotiated its own separate treaties, and 
resumes its pre-war relations with victors and vanquished 
alike. 

It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the 
way of treaties is rendered worthless, as the most im- 
portant participant has withdrawn. This is a further 
motive for reflecting that it is impossible to continue liv- 
ing much longer in a Europe divided into two camps and 
in a medley of rancors and hatreds which tends to rein- 
force the sense of hostility. 

It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe 
should once more be the wealthy, prosperous civilized 
Europe which, before 1914, ruled over the destinies of the 
world. Only by so great an effort can the finest con- 
quests of civilization come back to their own. 

We should remember our dead in order that their mem- 
ory may prevent future generations from being saddened 
by other war victims. The voices of those whom we have 
lost should reach us as voices praying for the return of 



PEEFACE 

that civilization which shall render massacres impossible, 
or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of war. 

Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common 
danger, so is the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a com- 
mon need. 

Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may 
be misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. 
Truth is on the march and will assert herself: we shall 
strike the main road after much dreary wandering in 
the dark lanes of prejudice and violence. 

Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who 
in the intoxication of victory proclaimed ideas of violence 
and revenge, would now be very glad to reverse their at- 
titude, of which they see the unhappy results. The truth 
is that what they privately recognize they will not yet 
openly admit. But no matter. 

The confessions which many of them have made to me, 
both verbally and in writing, induce me to believe that my 
ideas are also their ideas, and that they only seek to 
express them in the form and on the occasions less antag- 
onistic to the currents of opinion that they themselves set 
up in the days when the chief object to be achieved 
seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy. 

Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situ- 
ation. 

As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned 
the Treaty of Versailles, nor will it approve it. The 
United States of America is making treaties on its own 
account. 

Agreements of a military character had been arrived at 
in Paris : the United States of America and Great Britain 
guaranteed France against any future unjust attack by 
Germany. The American Senate did not sanction 



PEEFACE > 

the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. 
The House of Commons had approved it subject to the 
consent of the United States. Italy has kept aloof from all 
alliances. As a result of this situation, the four Entente 
Powers, "Allied and Associated" (as formerly was the 
official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or "as- 
sociated" after the end of the war. 

On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the 
war, is darkened and overcast by intrigues, secret agree- 
ments and dissimulated plots: fresh menaces of war and 
fresh explosions of dissatisfaction. 

Nothing will advance peace more than to give the 
people a knowledge of the real situation. Errors thrive in 
darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. 
It has been my intention to lay before the public those 
great controversies which can not merely form the object 
of diplomatic notes or of posthumous books presented to 
Parliament in a more or less incomplete condition after 
events have become irreparable. 

The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, 
will prove the most persuasive factor in swerving us from 
the perilous route which we are now following. 

As a result of the war the bonds of economic solidarity 
have been torn asunder: the losers in the war must not 
only make good their own losses, but, according to the 
treaties, are expected to pay for all the damage that the 
war has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of Europe 
have only one prevailing fear: German competition. In 
order to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she 
can only do it by exporting goods), Germany is obliged to 
produce at the lowest possible cost, which necessitates the 
maximum of technical progress. But exports at low cost 
must in the long run prove detrimental, if not destructive, 



PREFACE 

to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of 
the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been 
published or which are in course of preparation there is 
one prevailing object in view: that of reducing German 
competition, which practically amounts to rendering it 
impossible for her to pay the war indemnity. 

If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas 
for a while, and, rather, were to persuade themselves that 
the oppression of the vanquished can not be lasting, and 
that there is no other logical way out of the difficulty 
but that of small indemnities payable in a few years, debit- 
ing to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts contracted 
toward Great Britain and the United States, the European 
situation would immediately improve. 

Why is Europe still in such economic confusion? Be- 
cause the confusion of moral ideas persists. In many 
countries nerves are still as tense as a bowstring, and the 
language of hatred still prevails. For some countries, as 
for some social groups, war has not yet ceased to be. One 
hears now in the countries of the victors the same argu- 
ments used as were current coin in Germany before the 
war and during the first phases of the war ; only now and 
then, more as a question of habit than because they are 
truly felt, we hear the words justice, peace and democ- 
racy. 

Why is the present stq,te of discomfort and dissatisfac- 
tion on the increase ? Because almost everywhere in Con- 
tinental Europe, in the countries which have emerged 
from the war, the rate of production is below the rate of 
consumption, and many social groups, instead of produc- 
ing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the 
wealth produced by others. At home, the social classes, 
unable to resist, are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, 



PREFACE 

equally unable to resist, are menaced, but in the very- 
menace it is easy to discern the anxiety of the winners. 
Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow apace. 

The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A 
great step toward its solution Avill have been accomplished 
when conquerors and conquered persuade themselves that 
only by a common effort can they be saved, and that the 
best enemy indemnity consists in peace and common toil. 
Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens 
to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing alone is 
necessary: to rediscover not merely the language but the 
ideas of peace. 

During one of the last international conferences at 
which I was present, and over which I presided, at San 
Kemo, after a long exchange of views with the British and 
French Premiers, Lloyd George and Millerand, the Ameri- 
can journalists asked me to give them my ideas on peace : 
"What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of 
peace?" they inquired. 

**One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe 
must smile once more." Smiles have vanished from every 
lip ; nothing has remained but hatred, menaces and nervous 
excitement. 

When Europe smiles again she will find again the pol- 
itical bases of peace and will drink once more at the spring 
of life. Class struggles at home, in their acutest form, are 
like the competition of nationalism abroad: explosions of 
cupidity, masked by the pretext of the country's great- 
ness. 

The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and 
prepares new wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which 
threatens and prepares new civil conflicts, are merely the 
Expression of a state of mind. Statesmen are the most 



PREFACE 

directly responsible for the continuation of a language of 
violence; they should be the first to speak the language 
of peace. 

F. N. 

ACQUAFREDDA IN BaSILICATA. 

September 30, 1921. 

P. S. — Peaceless Europe is an entirely new book, which 
1 have written in my hermitage of Acquafredda, facing 
the sea; it contains, however, some remarks and notices 
which have already appeared in articles written by me for 
the great American agency, the United Press, and which 
have been reproduced by the American papers. 

I have repeatedly stated that I have not published any 
document that was not meant for publication; I have 
availed myself of my knowledge of the most important in- 
ternational acts and of all diplomatic documents merely as 
a guide, but it is on facts that I have solidly based my 
considerations. 

J. Keynes and Robert Lansing have already published 
some very important things, but no secret documents; re- 
cently, however, Tardieu and Poincare, in the interest of 
the French nationalist thesis which they sustain, have 
published also documents of a more private nature. Tar- 
dieu 's book is a documentary proof of the French Govern- 
ment's extremist attitude during the conference, amply 
showing that the present form of peace has been desired 
almost exclusively by France, and that the others have 
been unwilling parties to it. Besides his articles in the 
Revue des Deux Mondes, Poincare has recently published 
in the Temps (September 12, 1921) a whole secret corre- 
spondence between Poincare, President of the Republic, 
Clemenceau, President of the Council of Ministers, the 
^American Delegation, and, above all, Lloyd George. 



The author includes in the hook numerous secret 
official documents that emanated from the Peace Con- 
ference and which came into his hands in his posi- 
tion, at that time, as Italian prime minister. Among 
these is a long and hitherto unpuhlished secret letter 
sent hy Lloyd George to Nitti, Wilson, Clemenceau, 
and the other members of the Peace Conference, 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN 
EDITION 

Scarcely had this book appeared in the Italian edition 
than it was translated and published in many languages 
and distributed in many editions. In Europe and in 
America it aroused both in parliaments and in the news- 
papers the most lively discussion. This reception proves 
but one thing : the ideas which the book contains, and they 
are those from which I have never departed even at the 
time when war hatred and national self-seeking were most 
widely prevalent, are making their way. They will pre- 
vail. 

France received as a result of the war new territories, 
control of raw materials, new colonies and new organiza- 
tions abroad ; Italy remains free within her own boundaries 
and has realized even if but partly and at very great price 
some of her national aspirations, yet both declare that they 
are not able to pay the debts contracted by them during 
the war. England herself has not yet been able to pay. 
On the other hand, Germany is not free; she is shackled 
and exhausts her remaining strength in the struggle 
against a hopeless financial situation. She has lost her 
fleet, her colonies, a large part of her raw materials, her 
commercial organization abroad. Furthermore she must 
at heavy cost maintain upon her own soil the Entente's 
army of occupation. The expense accounts that are still 
being charged up against her are not only an insult to 
the conquered; they are also a reflection on the right- 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 

mindedness and tlie honesty of the conquerors. But when 
nothing is more evident than Germany's insolvency we 
hear men discussing seriously the indemnities which the 
vanquished are to pay in order to reestablish the finances 
of the victors. 

Perhaps, as has been shrewdly said, the debts contracted 
during the war will neither be paid nor canceled. On the 
one hand America can not persuade herself that her citi- 
zens should tax themselves heavily in order to contribute to 
this chaotic European situation in which violence rules 
supreme and in which questions of justice and right are 
daily trampled under foot. On the other hand the vic- 
torious countries of Europe have still a long way to go 
before they will find any improvement in their situation. 
But the truths which were erstwhile neglected and dis- 
regarded are daily forcing themselves upon our attention. 
Many intelligent men are beginning to be troubled by 
doubts. To be sure, there are still those who threaten and 
maintain the extreme position. They hold that there must 
be no departure from the treaties that have been made, and 
in the name of the rights of victory they defend the policy 
of ruin. The attention of the world, however, is being 
centered upon the question of the reconstruction of Europe 
as a vital necessity and as the condition of security for 
the victorious countries themselves. 

Even Great Britain, which is the richest country of 
Europe, is paralyzed in all its activities as a result of the 
disappearance of her Russian trade and the virtual loss of 
her markets in Central Europe. In the memorandum of 
Lloyd George at the conference of Cannes there is the ex- 
plicit statement that even the British people will be un- 
able to prevent themselves from being drawn down into 
the general impoverishment if the system now in force as 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 

a result of the Treaty of Versailles is not broken. There 
are in Great Britain about two million men out of work 
and the subsidies paid for the relief of the unemployed 
have in a single week surpassed two million pounds 
sterling. With his customary clear-headedness, Lloyd 
George has been willing to recognize the truths which I 
have proclaimed. He has recognized the impending dis- 
aster concerns both victors and vanquished. He has 
recognized the damage already done to European civiliza- 
tion which is headed toward a social and economic catas- 
trophe. And since he realized that every month's delay 
means a frightful increase in human misery and threatens 
civilization itself, he decided to invite the governments of 
France and Italy to work together in close cooperation. 
This cooperation must aim at maintaining peace among the 
nations and at reducing national armaments, for, as the 
British Government has solemnly affirmed, only in this 
manner will Europe obtain that feeling of security which 
is necessary to the existence of civilized peoples. 

Undoubtedly further conferences will follow that held 
in Washington, and it is necessary that the victors and 
the vanquished of to-day, forgetting their former antag- 
onisms, meet together and discuss coolly the common 
dangers of the future. 

The decisions which have been reached in recent months 
in nearly all parliaments, and the communications which 
I have received since the publication of my book from some 
of the most eminent statesmen of Europe and America, 
show that the truth is making its way. Furthermore many 
of the most illustrious and influential political figures in 
Europe, though they do not yet dare to shatter the il- 
lusion which still dominates the masses in many of the 
victorious countries, now no longer conceal the fact that 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 

henceforth the question of reconstruction interests almost 
to the same degree both the conquerors and the conquered. 
We shall not reestablish our finances, and what is more 
important, we shall have no assurance of safety, without a 
true peace ; and we shall not establish a true peace without 
a larger measure of justice. And this is the case since it 
is evident that to-day more than ever before problems that 
have to do with our financial prosperity are merely prob- 
lems of justice and of peace. 

F. N. 
March 20, 1922. 



The present volume — the first to be published in the 
United States — is a translation of the second revised and 
enlarged edition of Ex-premier Francesco Nitti's L'Eu- 
ropa Senza Pace. As a result of the discussion which the 
first edition aroused on the Continent and in England and 
because of changes in the rapidly shifting European situa- 
tion, Signor Nitti has made a number of additions which 
are here for the first time offered for the consideration of 
the English reading public. For the translation of these 
newer sections the publishers wish to acknowledge their 
obligations to Christian Gauss, Professor of Modern Lan- 
guages at Princeton University. Professor Gauss has also 
corrected and thoroughly revised the original translation, 
made in England and is happily responsible for the pres- 
ent volume's greater clarity as well as its substantial ac- 
curacy. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I Europe Without Peace ..... 1 

II The Peace Treaties and the Continua- 
tion OF THE War 24 

III The Peace Treaties: Their Origin and 

Aims 60 

IV The Conquerors and the Conquered . 128 

V The Indemnity from the Defeated En- 

emy AND THE Anxieties of the Victors 200 

VI Europe's Post-war Reconstruction and 

Peace Policy 264 

Index . . . . >j >; [.] r.^ r.^ >: . 295 



THE WRECK OF EUROPE 



EUEOPE WITHOUT PEACE 

Is THEKE any one who still remembers Europe as 
it was in the first months of 1914 or who can clearly 
recall the situation that preceded the first year of 
the war? It all seems terribly remote, something 
like a prehistoric era, not only because the conditions 
of life have changed, but because our view-point on 
life has swerved to a different angle. 

Something like thirty million dead have created a 
chasm between two ages. War killed many millions, 
disease accounted for many more, but the hardiest 
reaper has been famine. The dead have built up a 
great barrier between the Europe of yesterday and 
the Europe of to-day. 

We have lived through two historic epochs, not 
through two different periods. Europe was happy 
and prosperous, while now, after the terrible World 
War, she is threatened with a decline and a reversion 
to brutality which suggest the fall of the Roman 
Empire. We ourselves do not quite understand 
what is happening around us. More than two-thirds 

1 



2 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

of Europe is in a state of ferment, and everywhere 
there prevails a vague sense of uneasiness, that 
tends to make impossible enterprises which call for 
unified and coordinated social effort. We live, as 
the saying is, ''from hand to mouth." 

Before 1914, Europe had enjoyed a prolonged 
period of peace, attaining a degree of wealth and 
civilization unrivaled in the past. 

In Central Europe, Germany had sprung up. 
After the Napoleonic invasions, in the course of a 
century, Germany, which a hundred years ago 
seemed of all European countries the least disposed 
to militarism, had developed into a great military 
monarchy. From being the most decentralized coun- 
try, Germany had in reality become the most unified 
state. But what constituted her strength was not so 
much her army and navy as the prestige of her in- 
tellectual development. She had achieved it labo- 
riously, almost painfully, on a soil that was not fer- 
tile and mthin a limited territory, but, thanks to the 
tenacity of her effort, in every branch of activitiy 
she succeeded in winning a prominent place in the 
world-race for supremacy. Her universities, her 
institutes for technical instruction, her schools, were 
a model for the whole world. In the course of a few 
years she had built up a merchant fleet that seriously 
threatened those of other countries. Having arrived 
too late to create a real colonial empire of her own, 
such as those of France and England, she neverthe- 
less succeeded in exploiting her colonies most intel- 
ligently. 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 3 

In the field of industry she appeared to beat all 
competitors from a technical point of view; and 
even in those industries which were not hers by 
habit and tradition she developed so powerful an 
organization as to appear almost miraculous. Ger- 
many held first place not only in the metallurgical 
and mechanical industries, but also in the production 
of dyes and chemicals. Men went there from all 
parts of the world not only to trade but to acquire 
knowledge. An ominous threat weighed on the em- 
pire, namely the constitution of the state itself, es- 
sentially militaristic and bureaucratic. Not even in 
Russia, perhaps, were the reins of power held in 
the hands of so few as they were in Germany and 
Austria-Hungary. 

A few years before the World War one of the 
leading European statesmen told me that there was 
everything to be feared for the future of Europe 
where the peoples of Russia, Germany and Austria- 
Hungary, about two-thirds of the whole continent, 
were governed in an almost irresponsible manner by 
men without will or intelligence : the czar of Russia ; 
the German kaiser, a madman without a spark 
of genius, and the emperor of Austria-Hungary, an 
obstinate old man hedged in by his ambition. Not 
more than thirty persons, he added, act as a con- 
trolling force on these three irresponsible sov- 
ereigns, who might assume, on their own initiative, 
the most terrible responsibilities. 

The magnificent spiritual gifts of the Germans 
gave them an Immanuel Kant, the greatest thinker of 



4 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

modem times, Beethoven, their greatest exponent of 
music, and Goethe, their greatest poet. But the 
imperial Germany which came after the victory of 
1870 had limited the spirit of independence even in 
the manifestations of literature and art. There still 
existed in Germany the most mdely known men of 
science, the best universities, the most up-to-date 
schools ; but the clumsy mechanism tended to crush 
rather than to encourage all personal initiative. 
Great manifestations of art or thought are not pos- 
sible without the most ample spiritual liberty. Ger- 
many was the most highly organized country from 
a scientific point of view, but at the same time the 
country in which there was the least liberty for indi- 
vidual initiative. It went on like a huge machine: 
that explains why, after the war had thro^vn it out 
of gear, it almost stopped, and the whole life of the 
nation was paralyzed while there were very few indi- 
vidual impulses of reaction. Imperial Germany has 
always been lacking in political ability, perhaps not 
only through a temperamental failing, but chiefly 
owing to her mihtaristic education. 

Before the war, Germany surpassed her neighbors 
in all those branches of activity which are the result 
of organized effort: in science, industry, banking, 
commerce, etc. But in one thing she did not excel, 
and still less after the war, namely, in politics. 
When the German people was blessed with a politi- 
cal genius, such as Frederick the Great or Bismarck, 
it achieved the height of greatness and glory. But 
when the same people, after obtaining the maximum 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 5 

of power, found on its path William II with his 
mediocre collaborators, it ruined, by war, a colossal 
work, not only to the great detriment of the country, 
but also to that of the victors themselves, of whom 
it can not be said with any amount of certainty, as 
far as the Continental Powers are concerned, 
whether they are the winners or the losers, so great 
is the ruin threatening them, and so vast the material 
and moral losses sustained. 

I have always felt the deepest aversion for Will- 
iam II. As recently as ten years ago he was still 
treated with the greatest sympathy both in Europe 
and America. Even democracies regarded with ill- 
concealed admiration the work of the kaiser, who 
brought everywhere his voice, his enthusiasm, his 
activity, to the service of Germany. As a matter of 
fact, his speeches were poor in phraseology, a mere 
conglomerate of violence, prejudice and ignorance. 
As no one believed in the possibility of a war, no 
one troubled about it. But after the war nothing 
has been more harmful to Germany than the memory 
of those ugly speeches, unrelieved by any noble idea, 
and full of a clumsy vulgarity set forth in a preten- 
tiously solemn and majestic fashion. Some of his 
threatening utterances — such as the address to the 
troops sailing for China in order to quell the Boxer 
rebellion, the constant association in all his speeches 
of the great idea of God, with the ravings of a 
megalomaniac, the frenzied oratory in which he in- 
dulged at the beginning of the war — have harmed 
Germany more than anything else. It is possible to 



6 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

lose nobly ; but to have lost a great war after having 
won so many battles would not have harmed the Ger- 
man people if it had not been represented abroad by 
the presumptuous vulgarity of the kaiser and of all 
the members of his entourage, who were more or 
less guilty of the same attitude. 

Before the war Germany had everywhere attained 
first place in all forms of activity, except, perhaps, 
in certain spiritual and artistic manifestations. She 
admired herself too much and with too evident a 
complacency, but she achieved for herself through 
her magnificent expansion a position of unrivaled 
greatness and prosperity. 

By common consent Germany held first place. 
Probably this consciousness of power, together with 
the somewhat brutal forms of the struggle for indus- 
trial supremacy, as in the case of the iron industry, 
threw a mysterious and threatening shadow over the 
seemingly monumental structure of the empire. 

When I was minister of commerce in 1913 I re- 
ceived a deputation of German business men who 
wished to confer with me on the Italian customs 
regime. They spoke openly of the necessity of 
possessing themselves of the iron mines of French 
Lorraine ; they looked on war as a factor in indus- 
trial development. Germany had enough coal but 
needed iron, and the Press of the iron industry dis- 
seminated ideas of war. After the conclusion of 
peace, when France, through a series of wholly un- 
expected events, saw Germany prostrate at her feet 
and without an army, the same phenomenon took 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 7 

place. The iron industry is gaining strength in 
France; she has the iron and now she wants coal. 
Should she succeed in getting it, German production 
would be doomed. To deprive Germany of Upper 
Silesia would mean killing production after having 
disorganized the foundations of its development. 

Seven years ago, or thereabouts, Germany was 
flourishing in an unprecedented manner and pre- 
sented the most favorable conditions for developing. 
The prosperity of her increasing population was 
amazing. Placed in the center of Europe after hav- 
ing withstood the push of so many peoples, she had 
attained an unrivaled economic position. 

Close to Germany the Austro-Hungarian Empire 
was uniting, not without difficulty, eleven different 
peoples, and this union was tending to the common 
elevation of all. The vast monarchy, thanks to a 
process of slow agglomeration and methods of vio- 
lence and administrative sagacity, represented, per- 
haps, the most interesting historic attempt on the 
part of different peoples to achieve a common rule 
and discipline on the same territory. Having suc- 
cessfully weathered the most terrible financial 
crises, and having healed in half a century the 
wounds of two great wars which she had lost, Aus- 
tria-Hungary lived in the effort of holding together 
Germans, Magyars, Slavs and Italians and keeping 
them from flying at one another's throats. Time 
will show that the effort of Austria-Hungary has not 
been lost for civilization. 

Russia represented the largest empire that has 



8 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

ever existed, and in spite of its defective political 
regime was daily progressing. Perhaps for the first 
time in history an immense empire of twenty-one 
millions and a half of square kilometers, eighty-four 
times the size of Italy, almost three times as large as 
the United States of America, was ruled by a single 
man. From the Baltic to the Yellow Sea, from Fin- 
land to the Caucasus, one law and one rule governed 
the most different peoples scattered over an im- 
mense territory. The methods by which, after 
Peter the Great, the old Duchy of Muscovy had been 
transformed into an empire, still lived in the ad- 
ministration; they survive to-day in the Bolshevist 
organization, which represents less a revolution 
than a hieratic and brutal form of violence placed 
at the service of a political organization. 

The war between Russia and Japan had revealed 
all the perils of a political organization exclusively 
based on central authority represented by a few 
irresponsible men under the apparent rule of a 
sovereign not gifted mth the slightest glimmer of 
will power. 

Those who exalt nationalist sentiments and pin 
their faith on imperiahstic systems fail to realize 
that while the greatest push toward the war came 
from countries living under a less liberal regime, 
those very countries gave proof of the least power 
of resistance. Modern war means the full exploita- 
tion of all the human and economic resources of each 
belligerent country. The greater a nation's wealth 
the greater is the possibility to hold out, and the 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 9 

perfection of arms and weapons is in direct ratio 
with the degree of technical progress attained. 
Moreover, the combatants and the possibility of 
using them are in relation with the number of per- 
sons who possess sufficient skill and instruction to 
direct the war. Germany, Great Britain, France, 
Italy, the United States of America, were able with- 
out any appreciable effort to improvise an enormous 
number of officers for the war, transforming pro- 
fessional men, engineers and technicians into offi- 
cers. Russia, who did not have a real industrial 
bourgeoisie nor a sufficient development of the mid- 
dle classes, was only able to furnish an enormous 
number of combatants, but an insufficient organiza- 
tion from a technical and military point of view, and 
a very limited number of officers. While on a peace 
footing her army was the largest in the world, over 
one million three hundred thousand men; when her 
officers began to fail Russia was unable to replace 
them as rapidly as the proportion of nine or ten 
times more than normal required by the war. 

Russia has always had a latent force of develop- 
ment ; there is within her a vis inertice equivalent to 
a mysterious energy of expansion. Her birth-rate 
is higher than that of any other European country; 
she does not progress, she increases. Her weight 
acts as a menace to neighboring countries, and 
although by a mysterious historic law the primitive 
migrations of peoples and the ancient invasions for 
the most part originated within the territories now 
occupied by Russia, the latter nevertheless sue- 



10 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

ceeded in amalgamating widely different peoples 
and in creating unity where no affinity appeared 
possible. 

At any rate, although suffering from an excess- 
ively centralized government and a form of consti- 
tution that did not allow the development of popular 
energies nor a sufficient education of the people, 
Russia was perhaps, half a century before the war, 
the European country which, considering the diffi- 
culties in her path, had accomplished most progress. 

European Russia, with her yearly excess of from 
one million and a half to two million births over 
deaths, with the development of her industries and 
the formation of important commercial centers, had 
been progressing very rapidly and was about to 
become the center of European politics. 

"When it will be possible to examine carefully the 
diplomatic documents of the war, and time will allow 
us to judge them calmly, it will be seen that Russia's 
attitude was the real and underlying cause of the 
world-conflict. She alone promoted and kept alive 
the agitations in Serbia and of the Slavs in Austria ; 
she alone in Germany's eyes represented the peril 
of the future. Germany has never believed in a 
French danger. She knew very well that France, 
single-handed, could never have withstood Germany, 
numerically so much her superior. Russia was the 
only danger that Germany saw, and the continual 
increase of the Russian Army was her gravest pre- 
occupation. Before the war, when Italy was Ger- 
many's ally, the leading German statesmen with 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 11 

whom I had occasion to discuss the situation did 
nothing but allude to the Russian peril. It was 
known (and subsequent facts have amply proved it) 
that the czar was absolutely devoid of will power, 
that he was led and carried away by conflicting 
currents, and that his advisers were for the most 
part favorable to the war. After the Japanese de- 
feat the militarist party felt keenly the need for just 
such a great military revival and a brilliant revanche 
in Europe. 

Possessing an enormous wealth of raw materials 
and an immense territory, Russia represented 
Europe's great resource, her support for the future. 

If the three great empires had attained enviable 
prosperity and development in 1914, when the war 
broke out, the three great Western democracies, 
Great Britain, France and Italy, had likemse pro- 
gressed immensely. 

Great Britain, proud of her *' splendid isolation," 
and ruler of the seas, traded in every country of the 
world. Having the most extensive empire, she was 
also financially the greatest creditor country : credi- 
tor of America and Asia, of the new African States 
and of Australia. Perhaps all this wealth had 
before the war somewhat diminished the spirit of 
enterprise and it may be that popular culture also 
suffered from this unprecedented prosperity. There 
was an absence of that spasmodic effort noticeable 
in Germany, but a continuous and secure expansion, 
an indisputed supremacy was apparent. Although 
somewhat preoccupied at Germany's progress and 



12 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

regarding it as a peril for the future, Great Britain 
attached more importance to the problems of her 
empire, namely to her internal constitution: like 
ancient Rome, she was a truly imperial country in 
the security of her supremacy, in her calm, in her 
forbearance. 

France continued patiently to accumulate wealth. 
She did not increase her population, but ably added 
to her territory and her savings. Threatened with 
the phenomenon known to political economists under 
the name of ' ' oliganthropy, " or lack of men, she 
had founded a colonial empire that may be regarded 
as the largest on earth. It is true that the British 
colonies, even before the war, covered an area of 
thirty million square kilometers, while France's 
colonial empire exceeded but slightly twelve millions. 
But it must be remembered that the British colonies 
are not colonies in the proper sense of the word, 
but consist chiefly in dominions which enjoy an 
almost complete autonomy. Canada alone repre- 
sents about one-third of the territories of the British 
Dominions; Australia and New Zealand more than 
one-fourth, and Australasia, the South African 
Union and Canada put together represent more than 
two-thirds of the empire, while India accounts for 
about fifty per cent, of the missing third. Next to 
England, France was the most important creditor 
country. Her astonishing capacity for saving in- 
creased in proportion with her wealth. Without 
having Germany's force of development and Great 
Britain's power of expansion, France enjoyed a 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 13 

wonderful prosperity, and her wealth was scattered 
all over the world. 

Italy had arisen under the greatest difficulties, 
but in less than fifty years of unity she progressed 
steadily. Having a territory too small and moun- 
tainous for a population already overflowing and 
constantly on the increase, Italy had been unable to 
exploit the limited resources of her subsoil and had 
been forced to build up her industries in conditions 
far less favorable than those of other countries. 
Italy is perhaps the only great nation that has suc- 
ceeded in developing industries without having any 
coal of her own and very little iron. But the ac- 
quisition of wealth, extremely difficult at first, had 
gradually been rendered more easy by the improve- 
ment in technical instruction and methods, for the 
most part borrowed from Germany. On the eve of 
the war, after a period of thirty-three years, the 
Triple Alliance had rendered the greatest services 
to Italy, fully confirming Crispi's political intuition. 
France, mth whom we had had serious differences 
of opinion, especially after the Tunis affair, did not 
dare to threaten Italy because the latter belonged to 
the Triple Alliance ; for the same reason all ideas of 
a conflict with Austria-Hungary had been set aside 
because of her forming part of the "Triplice." 

During the Triple Alliance Italy built up all her 
industries, she consolidated her national unity and 
prepared her economic transformation, which was 
fraught -^ith considerable difficulties. As a result 
of the fecundity of her race and the narrowness of 



14 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

her confines her sons and her power were rapidly 
spreading to all parts of the earth. 

The greater states were surrounded by minor 
nations which had achieved considerable wealth and 
great prosperity. 

Europe throughout her history had never been so 
rich, so far advanced on the road to progress. Nor 
had she ever before achieved in so high a degree the 
sense of conununity of civilization and of life. As 
regards production and exchanges she was really a 
living unity. The vital lymph was not limited to this 
or that country, but flowed with an even current 
through the veins and arteries of the various nations 
through the great organizations of capital and labor, 
promoting a continuous and increasing solidarity 
among all the parties concerned. 

In fact, the idea of solidarity had greatly pro- 
gressed : economic, moral and spiritual solidarity. 

Moreover, the idea of peace, although threatened 
by military oligarchies and by industrial corners, 
was firmly based on the sentiments of the great ma- 
jority. The strain of barbaric blood which still fer- 
ments in many populations of Central Europe con- 
stituted — ^it is true — a standing menace ; but no one 
dreamed that the threat was about to be followed, 
lightning-like, by facts, and that we were on the eve 
of a catastrophe. 

Europe had forgotten what hunger meant. Never 
had Europe had at her disposal such abundant 
economic resources or a greater increase in wealth. 

Wealth is not our final object in life. But a 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 15 

minimuin of means is an indispensable condition of 
life and happiness. Excessive wealth may lead both 
to moral elevation and to depression and rain. 

Europe had not only increased her wealth but 
developed the solidarity of her interests. Europe is 
a small continent, about as large as Canada or the 
United States of America. But her economic ties 
and interests had been steadily on the increase. 

Now the development of her wealth meant for 
Europe the development of her moral ideas and of 
her social life and aspirations. We admire a country 
not so much for its wealth as for the tasks which that 
wealth enables it to accomplish. 

Although peace be the aspiration of all peoples, 
even as physical health is the aspiration of all living 
beings, there are wars that can not be avoided, as 
there are diseases that help us to overcome an or- 
ganic crisis to which we might otherwise succumb. 
War and peace can not be regarded as absolutely 
bad or absolutely good and desirable; war is often 
waged in order to secure peace. In certain cases 
war is not only a necessary condition of life but may 
be an indispensable condition of progress. 

We must consider and analyze the sentiments and 
psychological causes that bring about a war. A war 
waged by a doAvntrodden nation to reestablish its 
independence from another nation is perfectly legiti- 
mate, even from the point of view of abstract mor- 
ality. A war that has for its object the conquest of 
political or religious liberty can not be condemned 
even by the most confirmed pacificist. 



16 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Taken as a whole, the wars fought in the nine- 
teenth century, wars of nationality, of independence, 
of unity, even colonial wars, were of a character far 
less odious than that of the great conflict which has 
devastated Europe and upset the economic condi- 
tions of the world. It has not only been the greatest 
war in history, but in its consequences it threatens 
to prove the worst war that has ravaged Europe in 
modem times. 

After nearly every nineteenth-century war there 
has been a marked revival of human activity. But 
this unprecedented clash of peoples has reduced the 
energy of all ; it has darkened the minds of men, and 
spread the spirit of violence. 

Europe will be able to make up for her losses in 
lives and wealth. Time heals even the most painful 
wounds. But one thing she has lost which she must 
recover or she will become decadent. That one thing 
is the spirit of solidarity. 

After the victory of the Entente the microbes of 
hate have developed and flourished in special cul- 
tures, consisting of national egotism, imperialism, 
and a mania for conquest and expansion. 

The peace treaties imposed on the vanquished are 
nothing but instruments of oppression. What more 
could Germany herself have done had she won the 
war? Perhaps her terms would have been more 
lenient. Certainly they would not have been more 
severe, for she would have understood that condi- 
tions such as we have imposed on the losers are sim- 
ply inapplicable. 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 17 

Three years have elapsed since the end of the 
war, two since the conclusion of peace, nevertheless 
Europe has to-day more men under arms than in pre- 
war times. The sentiment of nationality, twisted 
and transformed into nationalism, aims at the sub- 
jugation and oppression of other peoples. No 
civilized coordinated life is possible where each na- 
tion proposes to harm instead of helping its neigh- 
bor. 

The spread of hatred among peoples has every- 
where rendered more difficult the internal relations 
between social classes and the economic life of each 
country. Looking forward to further conflicts, and 
goaded on by that spirit of unrest and intolerance 
engendered everywhere by the war, workers are be- 
coming every day more exacting. They, too, claim 
their share of the spoils; they, too, clamor for in- 
demnities from the enemy. The same manifesta- 
tions of hate, the same violence of language, spread 
from people to people and from class to class. 

This tremendous war, which the peoples of 
Europe have fought and suffered, has not only bled 
the losers almost to death, but it has deeply per- 
turbed the very life and existence of the victors. It 
has not produced a single manifestation of art nor 
a single moral affirmation. For the last seven years 
the universities of Europe appear to be stricken with 
paralysis : not one outstanding personality has been 
revealed. 

In almost every country the war has brought a 
sense of internal dissolution: everywhere this dis- 



18 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

quieting phenomenon is more or less noticeable. 
With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose 
privileged insular situation, enormous merchant 
marine and flourishing trade in coal have enabled 
her to resume her pre-war economic existence almost 
entirely, no country has noted any perceptible im- 
provement in its condition since the close of the war. 
The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic 
heights, and insuperable barriers to the commerce of 
European nations are being created. People work 
less than they did in pre-war times, but everywhere 
a tendency is noticeable to consume more. Austria, 
Germany, Italy, France are not different phe- 
nomena, but different manifestations and phases of 
the same phenomenon. 

Before the war Europe, in spite of her great sub- 
divisions, represented a living economic whole. 
To-day there are not only victors and vanquished, 
but currents of hate, ferments of violence, a hunger- 
ing after conquests, an unscrupulous cornering of 
raw materials carried out brutally and almost osten- 
tatiously in the name of the rights of victory : a sit- 
uation that renders production, let alone its develop- 
ment and increase, utterly impossible. 

The treaty system as applied after the war has 
divided Europe into two distinct parts: the losers, 
held under the military and economic control of the 
victors, are expected to produce not only enough for 
their own needs, but to provide a super-production 
in order to indemnify the winners for all the losses 
and damages sustained on accomit of the war. The 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 19 

victors, bound together in what is supposed to be a 
permanent alliance for the protection of their com- 
mon interests, are to exercise military force as a 
means of oppression and control over the losers 
until the full payment of the indemnity. Another 
part of Europe is in a state of revolutionary fer- 
ment, and the Entente Powers have, by their atti- 
tude, rather tended to aggravate than to improve the 
situation. 

Europe can recover peace only by remembering 
that the war is over. Unfortunately, the system 
created by the treaties not only prevents us from 
remembering that the war is ended, but determines 
a state of permanent Avar. 

Clemenceau bluntly declared to the French 
Chamber that treaties were a means of continuing 
the war. He was perfectly right, for war is being 
waged more bitterly than ever, and peace is more 
remote. 

The problem with which modern statesmen are 
confronted is very simple: can Europe continue in 
her decline without involving the ruin of civiliza- 
tion? And is it possible to stop this process of decay 
without finding some form of civil symbiosis which 
will insure for all men a more human mode of living ? 
In the affirmative case what action can we take? 
Furthermore will it be possible to carry out such 
action, given the national and economic interests 
now openly and bitterly in conflict? 

We have before us a problem, or rather a series 
of problems, which call for impartiality and calm if 



20 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

a satisfactory solution is to be arrived at. Perhaps 
if some fundamental truths were brought home to 
the people, or, to be more exact, to the peoples now 
at loggerheads with one another, a notion of the 
peril equally impending upon all concerned and the 
conviction that an indefinite prolongation of the 
present state of things is impossible, would prove 
decisive factors in restoring a spirit of peace and in 
reviving that spirit of solidarity which now appears 
spent or slumbering. 

But in the first place it is necessary to review the 
situation, such as it is at the present moment: 

1. Europe, which was the creditor of all other 
continents, has now become their debtor. 

2. Her working capacity has greatly decreased, 
chiefly owing to a change for the worse in her vital 
statistics. In pre-war times the ancient continent 
supplied new continents and new territories with a 
hardy race of pioneers, and held the record as re- 
gards population, both adult and infantile, the pre- 
valence of women over men being especially noted 
by statisticians. All this has changed considerably 
for the worse I 

3. On the losing nations, including Germany, 
which is generally understood to be the most cul- 
tured nation in the world, the victors have forced a 
peace which practically amounts to a continuation of 
the war. The vanquished have had to give up their 
colonies, their shipping, their credits abroad, and 
their transferable resources, besides agreeing to the 
military and economic control of the Allies; more- 



EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE 21 

over, despite their desperate conditions, they are 
expected to pay an indemnity, the amount of which, 
although hitherto only vaguely mentioned, surpasses 
by its very absurdity all possibility of an even re- 
mote settlement. 

4. Considerable groups of ex-enemy peoples, 
chiefly Germans and Magyars, have been assigned 
to populations of an inferior civilization. 

5. As a result of this state of things, while Ger- 
many, Austria and Bulgaria have practically no 
army at all and have submitted without the slight- 
est resistance to the most stringent forms of mili- 
tary control, the victorious states have increased 
their armies and fleets to proportions which they 
did not possess before the war. 

6. Europe, cut up into more than thirty states, 
daily sees her buying capacity decreasing and the 
rate of exchange rising against her. 

7. The peace treaties are the most barefaced 
denial of all the principles which the Entente 
Powers declared and proclaimed during the war; 
not only so, but they are a fundamental negation of 
President Wilson's fourteen points which consti- 
tuted a solemn obligation, not only with the enemy, 
but with the democracies of the whole world. 

8. The subsequent moral unrest has divided the 
various Entente Powers, the United States of 
America, Great Britain, France and Italy, not only 
in their aims, but in their sentiments. The United 
States is anxious to get rid, as far as possible, of 
European complications and responsibilities; 



22 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

France is pursuing aims and methods with which 
Great Britain and Italy are not wholly in sympathy, 
and it can not be said that the three Great Powers 
of Western Europe are in perfect harmony. There 
is still a great deal of talk about common ends and 
ideals, and the necessity of applying the treaties in 
perfect accord and harmony, but everybody is con- 
vinced that to enforce the treaties, without attenuat- 
ing or modifying their terms, would mean the ruin 
of Europe and the collapse of the victors after that 
of the vanquished. 

9. A keen contest of nationalisms, land-grabbing 
and cornering of raw materials renders friendly re- 
lations between the thirty weakened states of 
Europe extremely difficult. The most characteristic 
examples of nationalist violence have arisen out of 
the war, as in the case of Poland and other new- 
born states, which pursue vain dreams of empire 
while on the verge of dissolution through sheer lack 
of vital strength and energy, and become every day 
more deeply engulfed in misery and ruin. 

10. Continental Europe is on the eve of a series 
of fresh and more violent wars among peoples, 
threatening to submerge civilization unless some 
means be found to replace the present treaties, which 
are based on the principle that it is necessary to con- 
tinue the war, by a system of friendly agreements 
whereby winners and losers are placed on a footing 
of liberty and equality, and which, while laying on 
the vanquished a weight they are able to bear, will 
liberate Europe from the present spectacle of a con- 



EUEOPE WITHOUT PEACE 23 

tinent divided into two camps, where one is armed 
to the teeth and threatening, while tlie other, un- 
armed and inoffensive, is forced to labor in slavish 
conditions under the menace of a servitude even 
more severe. 

11. The moral level of Europe is daily being 
lowered. The policies pursued toward the con- 
quered have no parallel in modern history. Along 
the Rhine some of the most progressive cities in the 
world have been placed under guard of black troops 
of inferior race, and they are guilty of every form 
of violence, which they commit not through necessity 
but with the desire to insult and outrage. The con- 
quered are deprived of their wealth by means of all 
kinds of parasitism and commissions of control 
which in reality often amount to spoliation, and the 
methods employed bring back to mind the worst 
phases of the Middle Ages. 

12. Europe, far from preparing vast federations 
of states, is being parcelled out to the great de- 
triment of any world economy. It may be said with- 
out departing very far from the truth that although 
Europe before the war had but a quarter of the 
population of the earth, as a result of its develop- 
ment it consumed one-half of all the principal pro- 
ducts of exchange. For this reason the crisis has 
been carried over into other continents and no stabil- 
ity can be reestablished except through the restora- 
tion of those principles of democracy and justice 
which have been too rudely violated by a series of 
peaces more unjust than war itself. 



II 



THE PEACE TEEATIES AND THE CONTINUATIOlir OF 
THE WAR 

The various peace treaties regulating the present 
territorial situation bear the names of the localities 
near Paris in which they were signed: Versailles, 
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Trianon and Sevres. 

The first deals with Germany, the second with 
Austria, the third with Hungary, and the fourth 
with Turkey. The Treaty of Neuilly, comparatively 
of far less importance, concerns Bulgaria alone. 
The one fundamental and decisive treaty is the 
Treaty of Versailles, inasmuch as it not only estab- 
lishes as a recognized fact the partition of Europe, 
but lays down the rules according to which all future 
treaties are to be concluded. 

History has no record of a more colossal diplo- 
matic feat than this treaty, by which Europe has 
been neatly divided into two camps: victors and 
vanquished; the former being authorized to exer- 
cise over the latter complete control until the ful- 
filment of conditions which can not be discharged 
until after thirty years from the time of their having 
been imposed. Competent judges in general agree- 

24 



THE PEACE TREATIES 25 

ment hold that these conditions are in large measure 
impossible. 

Although it is a matter of recent history, it is 
well to call to mind that the Entente Powers have 
always maintained that the war was willed and im- 
posed by Germany; that she alone, mth her allies, 
repeatedly violated the rights of peoples; that the 
World War could well be regarded as the last war, 
inasmuch as the triumph of the Entente meant the 
triumph of democracy and a more humane regime 
of life, a society of nations rich in effects conducive 
to a lasting peace. It was imperative to restore the 
principles of international justice. In France, in 
England, in Italy, and later, even more solemnly, in 
the United States, the same principles were pro- 
claimed by heads of states, by parliaments and gov- 
ernments. 

There are two documents drawn up on the eve of 
that event of decisive importance, the entry of the 
United States into the war, which lay down the 
principles which the Entente Powers bound them- 
selves to sustain and to carry on to triumph. The 
first is a statement by Briand to the United States 
ambassador, in the name of all the other Allies, 
dated December 30, 1916. Briand speaks in the 
name of all ^^les gouvernements allies unis pour la 
defense et la liberie des peuples." 

Briand 's second declaration, dated January 10, 
1917, is even more fundamentally important. It is 
a joint note of reply to President Wilson, delivered 
in the name of all the Allies to the United States 



26 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

ambassador. The principles therein established are 
very clearly enunciated. According to that docu- 
ment the Entente has no idea of conquest and pro- 
poses mainly to achieve the following objects : 

1st. Restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, 
with the indemnities due to them. 

2nd. Evacuation of invaded territories in France, 
Russia and Rumania and payment of just reparations. 

3rd. Reorganization of Europe with a permanent 
regime based on the respect of nationalities and on the 
right of all countries, both great and small, to complete 
security and freedom of economic development, besides ter- 
ritorial conventions and international regulations capable 
of guaranteeing land and sea frontiers from unjustified 
attacks. 

4th. Restitution of the provinces and territories taken 
in the past from the Allies by force and against the wish 
of the inhabitants. 

5th, Liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and 
Czecho-Slovaks from foreign rule. 

6th. Liberation of the peoples subjected to the tyranny 
of the Turks and expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman 
Empire, as being decidedly foreign to "Western civilization. 

7th. The intentions of His Majesty the Emperor of 
Russia in regard to Poland are clearly indicated in the 
proclamation addressed to his armies. 

8th. The Allies have never harbored the design of 
exterminating the Germanic peoples nor of bringing about 
their political disappearance. 

At that time the autocratic form of government 
still prevailed in Russia, and the Allies still con- 



THE PEACE TREATIES 27 

sidered themselves bound to Russia's aspirations; 
moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the obli- 
gations established by the Pact of London. That 
is why in the statements of the Entente Powers of 
Europe the restoration of Montenegro is regarded 
as an obligation ; mention is made of the necessity of 
driving the Turks out of Europe in order to enable 
Russia to seize Constantinople; and as to Poland, 
there are only vague allusions, namely, the reference 
made to the czar's intentions as outlined in his 
proclamation. 

The Entente has won the war, but Russia has 
collapsed under the strain. Victory without the fall 
of Russia would have been a misfortune for civiliza- 
tion, and would have created a Russian domination 
in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, to unite 
Dalmatia to Italy, while separating her from Italy, 
according to the Pact of London, by assigning the 
territory of Fiume to Croatia, would have meant 
setting all the forces of Slav irredentism against 
Italy. 

These considerations are of no practical value 
inasmuch as events have taken another course. 
Nobody can say what would have happened if the 
Carthagenians had conquered the Romans or if vic- 
tory had remained A\ith Mithridates. Hypotheses 
are of but slight interest when truth follows another 
direction. However it was most fortunate for 
Europe that victory was not decided by Russia, but 
that the United States proved a decisive factor in- 
stead. 



28 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

It is beyond all possible doubt that without the 
intervention of the United States of America the 
war could not have been won by the Entente. 
Although the admission may prove humiliating to 
the European point of view, it is a fact that can 
not be attenuated or disguised. The United States 
threw into the balance the weight of its enormous 
economic and technical resources, besides its enor- 
mous resources in men. Although she lost but fifty 
thousand men, the United States built up such a 
formidable human reserve as to deprive Germany 
of all hope of victory. The announcement of Ameri- 
ca 's entry into the Avar immediately crushed all Ger- 
many 's power of resistance. Germany felt that the 
struggle was no longer limited to Europe, and that 
every effort was vain. 

The United States, besides giving to the war enor- 
mous quantities of arms and money, had practically 
inexhaustible reserves of men to place in the field 
against an enemy already exhausted and famine- 
stricken. 

War and battles are two very different things. 
Battles constitute an essentially military fact, while 
war is an essentially political fact. That explains 
why great leaders in war have always been first and 
foremost great political leaders, namely, men accus- 
tomed to manage other men and able to utilize them 
for their purposes. Alexander, Julius Caesar, 
Napoleon, the three greatest military leaders pro- 
duced by Aryan civilization, were essentially politi- 
cal men. War is not only a clash of arms, it is above 



THE PEACE TREATIES 29 

all the most effective exploitation of men, of 
economic resources and of political situations. A 
battle is a fact of a purely military nature. The 
Romans almost constantly placed at the head of their 
armies personages of consular rank, who regarded 
and conducted the war as a political enterprise. The 
rules of tactics and strategy are perfectly useless if 
those who conduct the war fail to utilize to the ut- 
most all the means at their disposal. 

It can not be denied that in the war Germany and 
Austria-Hungary scored the greatest number of 
battles. For a long period they succeeded in invad- 
ing large tracts of enemy territory and in recover- 
ing those parts of their own territory that had been 
invaded, besides always maintaining the offensive. 
They won great battles at the cost of enormous 
sacrifices in men and lives, and for a long time 
they could believe themselves victorious. But they 
failed to understand that from the day in which the 
violation of Belgium's neutrality determined Great 
Britain's entry into the field, the war, from a gen- 
eral point of view, could be regarded as lost. As I 
have said, Germany is especially lacking in political 
sense: after Bismarck, her statesmen have never 
risen to the height of the situation. Even Von 
Billow, who appeared to be the most intelligent, 
never once showed true political sagacity. 

The "banal" statements made about Belgium and 
the United States of America by the men who di- 
rected Germany's war policy were precisely the sort 
of thing most calculated to harm the people from 



30 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

whom they came. What is decidedly lacking in Ger- 
many, while it abounds in France, is a political class. 
Now a political class, consisting of men of ability 
and culture, can only be the result of a democratic 
education in all modem states, especially in those 
which have achieved a high standard of civilization 
and development. It seems almost incredible that 
Germany, despite all her culture, should have toler- 
ated the political dictatorship of the kaiser and of 
his luckless collaborators. 

At the Conferences of Paris and London, in 1919 
and 1920, 1 did all that was in my power to prevent 
the trial of the kaiser, and I am convinced that my 
firm attitude in the matter succeeded in avoiding it. 
Sound common sense saved us from floundering in 
one of the most formidable blunders of the Treaty 
of Versailles. To hold one man responsible for the 
whole war and to bring him to trial, his enemies 
acting as judge and jury, would have been such a 
monstrous travesty of justice as to provoke a moral 
revolt throughout the world. On the other hand 
there was also another moral monstrosity, which 
deprived the Treaty of Versailles of every shred of 
dignity. If the one responsible for the war is the 
kaiser, why does the Entente demand of the German 
people such enormous indemnities, unprecedented in 
history? 

One of the men who has exercised the greatest 
influence on European events during the last ten 
years, one of the most intelligent and influential of 
living statesmen, once told me it was his opinion that 



THE PEACE TREATIES 31 

the kaiser did not want the war, but neither did he 
wish to prevent it. 

Germany, although under protest, has heen forced 
to accept the statement of the Versailles Treaty to 
the effect that she is responsible for the war and 
that she provoked it. The same charge has been 
leveled at her in all the Entente States during the 
conflict. 

^When our countries were engaged in the struggle, 
and we were at grips with a dangerous enemy, it was 
our duty to keep up the morale of our people and to 
paint our adversaries in the darkest colors, laying 
on their shoulders all the blame and responsibility. 
But after such a war, now that imperial Germany 
has fallen, it is absurd to maintain that the respon- 
sibility belongs to Germany alone, and that in pre- 
war Europe there had not been created before 1914 
conditions that were bound to lead to war. If Ger- 
many has the greatest responsibility, that responsi- 
bility is shared more or less by all the countries of 
the Entente. But while the Entente countries, in 
spite of their mistakes, had the political sense always 
to invoke principles of right and justice, the states- 
men of Germany gave utterance to notliing but bru- 
tal and vulgar statements, culminating in the de- 
plorable mental and moral expressions contained in 
the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. 
He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a 
harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, 
who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred 
against his country than the most active and intelli- 



32 THE WEECK OF EUEOPE 

gently managed enemy propaganda could possibly 
have done. 

If the issue of the war could be regarded as 
seriously jeopardized by England's intervention, it 
was practically lost for the Central Empires when 
the United States stepped in. 

America's decision definitely crippled Germany's 
resistance — and not only for military, but for moral 
reasons. In all his messages President Wilson had 
repeatedly declared that he wanted a peace based on 
justice and equity, of which he outlined the funda- 
mental conditions ; moreover, he stated that he had 
no quarrel with the German people, but with the men 
who were at their head, and that he did not wish to 
impose on the vanquished, oppressive terms of peace. 

President Wilson's ideas on the subject have been 
embodied in a bulky volume.* Turning over the 
pages of this book now we have the impression that 
it is a collection of literary essays by a man who 
had his eye on posterity and assumed a pose most 
likely to attract the admiration of generations yet 
unborn. But when these same words were uttered 
in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on ex- 
pectant and anxious ears; they were regarded as a 
ray of light in the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, 
and everybody listened to them, not only because the 
president was the authorized exponent of a great 
nation, of a powerful people, but because he repre- 
sented an inexhaustible source of vitality in the 
midst of the ravages of violence and death. Presi- 



*President Wilson's State Papers and Addresses, New York, 1918. 



THE PEACE TREATIES 33 

dent Wilson's messages have done as much as 
famine and cruel losses in the field to break the 
resistance of the German people. If it was possible 
to obtain a just peace, why go to the bitter end 
when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy 
is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a 
nation's power of resistance so much as doubt and 
faint-heartedness on the part of the governing 
classes. 

President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, 
that a peace without victory was to be preferred 
("It must be a peace mthout victory"), and that 
''Right is more precious than peace," had also re- 
peatedly affirmed that ''We have no quarrel with 
the German people." 

He only desired, as the exponent of a great de- 
mocracy, a peace which should be the expression of 
right and justice, evolving from the war a League of 
Nations, the first mile-stone in a new era of civiliza- 
tion, a league destined to bind together ex-belliger- 
ents and neutrals in one. 

In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear 
the most cruel privations. President Wilson's words, 
pronounced as a solemn pledge before the whole 
world, had a most powerful effect on all classes and 
greatly contributed toward the final breakdown of 
collective resistance. Democratic minds saw a 
promise for the future, while reactionaries welcomed 
any way out of their disastrous adventure. 

After America's entry in the war, President Wil- 
son, on January 8, 1918, formulated the fourteen 



34 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

points of his program regarding the aims of the war 
and the peace to be reahzed. 

It is here necessary to reproduce the original text 
of President Wilson's message containing the four- 
teen points which constitute a formal pledge under- 
taken by the democracy of America, not only toward 
enemy peoples but toward all peoples of the world. 

These important statements from President Wil- 
son's message have, strangely enough, been repro- 
duced either incompletely or in an utterly mistaken 
form even in official documents and in books pub- 
lished by statesmen who took a leading part in the 
Paris Conference. 

It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original 
text in full : 

"1st. Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest 
negotiations, after which secret international agreements 
will be abolished and diplomacy will always proceed 
frankly and openly. 

*'2nd. Full liberty of navigation on the high seas out- 
side territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when 
the seas be closed wholly or in part by an international 
decision sanctioned by international treaties. 

"3rd. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic 
barriers and establishment of terms of equality in com- 
merce among all nations adhering to peace and associated 
to maintain it. 

* ' 4th. Appropriate guarantees to be given and received 
for the reduction of national armaments to a minimum 
compatible with internal safety. 

* * 5th. A clear, open and absolutely impartial settlement 



THE PEACE TREATIES 35 

of all colonial rights, based on a rigorous observance of 
the principle that, in the determination of all questions 
of sovereignty, the interests of the populations shall bear 
equal weight with those of the government whose claims 
are to be determined. 

*'6th. The evacuation of all Russian territories and a 
settlement of all Russian questions such as to insure the 
best and most untrammeled cooperation of other nations 
of the world in order to afford Russia a clear and precise 
opportunity for the independent settlement of her 
autonomous political development and for her national 
policy, promising her a cordial welcome in the League of 
Nations under institutions of her own choice, and besides 
a cordial welcome, help and assistance in all that she may 
need and require. The treatment meted out to Russia by 
the sister nations in the months to come must be a decisive 
proof of their good will, of their understanding of her 
needs as apart from their own interests, and of their intel- 
ligent and disinterested sympathy. 

"7th. Belgium, as the whole world will agree, must be 
evacuated and reconstructed without the slightest attempt 
at curtailing the sovereign rights which she enjoys in 
common with other free nations. Nothing will be more 
conducive to the reestablishment of confidence and respect 
among nations for those laws which they themselves have 
made for the regulation and observance of their reciprocal 
relations. Without this salutary measure the whole struc- 
ture and validity of international law would be perma- 
nently undermined. 

"8th. All French territories will be liberated, the in- 
vaded regions reconstructed, and the wrong done to 
France by Prussia in 1871, in the question of Alsace- 
Lorraine, and which has jeopardized the peace of the 



36 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

world for nearly half a century, must be made good, so 
as to insure a lasting peace in the general interest. 

"9th. The Italian frontier must be rectified on the basis 
of the clearly recognized lines of nationality. 

"10th. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place 
among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and main- 
tained, should come to an agreement as to the best way 
of attaining their autonomous development. 

"11th. Kumania, Serbia and Montenegro are to be 
evacuated and occupied territories restored: a free and 
secure access to the sea for Serbia; mutual relations be- 
tween the Balkan States to be determined on a friendly 
basis by a Council, following the lines of friendship and 
nationality traced by tradition and history; the political 
and economic integrity of the various Balkan States to 
be guaranteed. 

"12th. A certain degree of sovereignty must be assigned 
to that part of the Ottoman Empire which is Turkish ; but 
the other nationalities now under the Turkish regime 
should have the assurance of an independent existence and 
of an absolute and undisturbed opportunity to develop 
their autonomy; moreover the Dardanelles should be per- 
manently open to the shipping and commerce of all nations 
under international guarantees. 

"13th. An independent Polish State should be founded, 
comprising all territories inhabited by peoples of un- 
doubtedly Polish nationality, with a free and secure access 
to the sea and its political and economic independence and 
territorial integrity guaranteed by international agree- 
ments. 

"14th. A League of Nations must be formed with spe- 
cial pacts and for the sole scope of insuring the reciprocal 
guarantees of political independence and of territorial in- 
tegrity, in equal measure both for large and small states." 



THE PEACE TREATIES 37 

The Peace Treaty as outlined by Wilson would 
really have brought about a just peace ; but we shall 
see how the actual result proved quite the reverse of 
what constituted a solemn pledge of the American 
people and of the Entente Powers. 

On February 11, 1918, President Wilson con- 
firmed before Congress that all territorial readjust- 
ments were to be made in the interest and for the 
advantage of the populations concerned, not merely 
as a bargain between rival states, and that there 
were not to be indemnities, annexations or punitive 
exactions of any kind. 

On September 27, 1918, just on the eve of the 
armistice, when German resistance was already 
shaken almost to the breaking point. President Wil- 
son gave it the coup de grace by his message on the 
post-helium economic settlement. No special or sep- 
arate interest of any single nation or group of na- 
tions was to be taken as the basis of any settlement 
which did not concern the common interest of all; 
there were not to be any leagues or alliances, or spe- 
cial pacts or ententes within the great family of the 
society of nations ; economic deals and corners of an 
egotistical nature were to be forbidden, as also all 
forms of boycotting, with the exception of those 
appHed in punishment to the countries transgress- 
ing the rules of good fellowship; all international 
treaties and agreements of every kind were to be 
published in their entirety to the whole world. 

It was a magnificent program of world policy. 
Not only would it have meant peace after war, but 



38 THE WKECK OF EUROPE 

a peace calculated to heal the deep wounds of 
Europe and to renovate the economic status of 
nations. 

On the basis of these principles, which constituted 
a solemn pledge, Germany, worn out by famine and 
even more by increasing internal unrest, demanded 
peace. 

According to President Wilson 's clear statements, 
made not only in the name of the United States but 
in that of the whole Entente, peace therefore was to 
be based on justice; the relations between winners 
and losers in a society of nations were to be inspired 
by mutual trust. 

There were no longer to be huge standing armies, 
neither on the part of the ex-Central Empires nor on 
that of the victorious states; adequate guarantees 
were to be given and received for the reduction of 
armies to the minimum necessary for internal de- 
fense; removal of all economic barriers; absolute 
freedom of the seas ; reorganization of the colonies 
based on the development of the peoples directly 
concerned ; abolition of secret diplomacy, etc. 

As to the duties of the vanquished, besides 
evacuating the occupied territories, they were to 
reconstruct Belgium, to restore to France the terri- 
tories taken in 1871; to restore all the territories 
belonging to Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, giv- 
ing Serbia a free and secure access to the sea; to 
constitute a free Poland with territories undoubtedly 
Polish to which there might be granted free and 
secure access to the sea. Poland, founded on secure 



THE PEACE TREATIES 39 

ethnical bases, far from being a military state, was 
to be an element of peace, and her political and 
economic independence and territorial integrity 
were to have been guaranteed by an international 
agreement. 

After the rectification of the Italian frontier ac- 
cording to the principles of nationality, the peoples 
of Austria-Hmigary were to agree on the free oppor- 
tunity of their autonomous development. In other 
terms, each people could freely choose autonomy or 
throw in its lot with some other state. After giving 
a certain sovereignty to the Turkish populations of 
the Ottoman Empire the other nationalities were to 
be allowed to develop autonomously, and the free 
navigation of the Dardanelles was to be internation- 
ally guaranteed. 

These principles announced by President Wilson, 
and already proclaimed in part by the Entente 
Powers when they stoutly affirmed that they were 
fighting for right, for democracy and for peace, did 
not constitute a concession but an obligation toward 
the enemy. In each of the losing countries, in Ger- 
many as in Austria-Hungary, the democratic groups 
opposed to the war, and those even more numerous 
which had accepted it at the beginning as in 
a moment of intoxication, when they exerted them- 
selves for the triumph of peace, had comited on the 
statements, or rather on the solemn promises which 
American democracy had made not only in the name 
of the United States but in that of all the Entente 
Powers. 



40 THE WEECK OF EUEOPE 

Let us now try to sum up the terms imposed on 
Germany and the other losing countries by the 
treaty of June 28, 1919. The treaty, it is true, was 
concluded between the Allied and Associated coun- 
tries and Germany, but it also concerns the very 
existence of other countries such as Austria-Hun- 
gary, Russia, etc. : 

I.— TERRITORIAL AND POLITICAL CLAUSES 

Until the payment of an indemnity the amount of which 
is as yet not definitely stated, Germany loses the funda- 
mental characters of a sovereign state. Not only part of 
her territory remains under the occupation of the ex-enemy 
troops for a period of fifteen years but a whole series of 
controls is established, military, administrative, on trans- 
ports, etc. The Commission for Reparations is empowered 
to effect all the changes it thinks fit in the laws and regu- 
lations of the German State, besides applying sanctions of 
a military and economic nature in the event of violations of 
the clauses placed under its control (Art. 240, 241). 

The Allied and Associated Governments declare and 
Germany recognizes that Germany and her allies are re- 
sponsible, being the direct cause thereof, for all the losses 
and damages suffered by the Allied and Associated Govern- 
ments and their subjects as a result of the war, which was 
thrust upon them by the aggression of Germany and her 
allies (Art. 231). Consequently the resources of Germany 
. (and by the other treaties those of her allies as well) are 
destined, even if insufficient, to insure full reparation for 
all losses and damages (Art. 232). 

The Allied and Associated Powers place in a state of 
public accusation William II of HohenzoUern, ex-German 



THE PEACE TREATIES 41 

Emperor, charging him with the gravest offenses against 
international morality and the sanctity of treaties. A 
special tribunal composed of representatives of the five 
great Entente Powers shall try him and will have the right 
of determining his punishment (Art. 227). The German 
Government likewise recognizes the right of the Allied and 
Associated Powers to try in their courts of justice the per- 
sons (and more especially the officers) accused of having 
committed acts contrary to the rules and customs of war. 

Restitution of Alsace and Lorraine to France without 
any obligation on the latter 's part, not even the correspond- 
ing quota of public debt (Art. 51 et seq.). 

The treaties of April 19, 1839, are abolished, so that Bel- 
gium, being no longer neutral, may become allied to France 
(Art. 31) ; attribution to Belgium of the territories of 
Eupen, Malmedy and Moresnet. 

Abolition of all the treaties which established political 
and economic bonds between Germany and Luxemburg 
(Art. 40). 

Annulment of all the treaties concluded by Germany 
during the war. 

German- Austria, reduced to a little state of hardly more 
than 6,500,000 inhabitants, about one-third of whom live 
in the capital (Art. 80), can not become united to Germany 
without the consent of the Society of Nations, and is not 
allowed to participate in the affairs of another nation, 
namely of Germany, before being admitted to the League 
of Nations (Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Art. 88). 
As the consent of the League of Nations must be unanimous, 
a contrary vote on the part of France would be sufficient 
to prevent German-Austria from becoming united to Ger- 
many. 

Attribution of North Schleswig to Denmark (Art. 109). 



42 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

Creation of the Czecho-Slovak State (Art. 87), which 
comprises the autonomous territory of the Ruthenians 
south of the Carpathians, Germany abandoning in favor of 
the new state all her rights and claims on that part of 
Silesia mentioned in Art. 83. 

Creation of the State of Poland (Art. 87), to whom 
Posnania and part of Western Prussia are made over. 
Upper Silesia is to decide by a plebiscite (Art. 88) whether 
it desires to be united to Germany or to Poland. The latter, 
even without Upper Silesia, becomes a state of 31,000,000 
inhabitants, with about fifty per cent, of the population 
non-Polish, including very numerous groups of Germans. 

Creation of the Free State of Danzig within the limits of 
Art. 100, under the protection of the League of Nations. 
The city is a Free City, but enclosed within the Polish 
Customs House frontiers, and Poland has full control of 
the river and of the railway system. Poland, moreover, 
has charge of the foreign affairs of the Free City of Dan- 
zig and undertakes to protect its subjects abroad. 

Surrender to the victors, or, to be more precise, almost 
exclusively to Great Britain and France, of all the German 
colonies (Art. 119 and 127). The formula (Art. 119) is 
that Germany renounces in favor of the leading Allied and 
Associated Powers all her territories beyond the seas. 
Great Britain has secured an important share, but so has 
France, receiving that part of Congo ceded in 1911, four- 
fifths of the Cameroons and of Togoland. 

Abandonment of all rights and claims in China, Siam, 
Liberia, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria and Shantung 
(Art. 128 and 158). 

Creation of a League of Nations to the exclusion, prac- 
tically, of Germany and of the other losing countries, with 
the result that the League is nothing but a juridical com- 



THE PEACE TREATIES ^3 

pletion of the Commission of Reparations. In all of the 
various treaties, the pact of the League of Nations, the 
Covenant, left standing among the collapse of President 
Wilson's other ideas and proposals, is given precedence 
over all other clauses. 

II.— MILITARY CLAUSES AND GUARANTEES 

Germany is obliged, and with her, by the subsequent 
treaties, all the other losing countries, to surrender her 
arms and to reduce her troops to the minimum necessary 
for internal defense (Art. 159 and 213). The German 
Army has no General Staff; its soldiers are mercenaries 
who enlist for a period of ten years ; it can not be composed 
of more than seven infantry and three cavalry divisions, 
not exceeding 100,000 men including officers: no staff, no 
military aviation, no heavy artillery. The number of 
gendarmes and of local police can only be increased pro- 
portionately with the increase of the population. The 
maximum of artillery allowed is limited to the require- 
ments of internal defense. Germany is strictly forbidden 
to import arms, ammunition and war material of any kind 
or description. Conscription is abolished, and officers 
must remain with the colors at least till they have attained 
the age of forty-five. No institute of science or culture is 
allowed to take an interest in military questions. All 
fortifications included in a line traced fifty kilometers to 
the east of the Rhine are to be destroyed, and on no account 
may German troops cross the said line. 

Destruction of Heligoland and of the fortresses of the 
Kiel Canal. 

Destruction under the supervision of the allied commis- 
sions of control of all tanks, flying apparatus, heavy and 



44 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

field artillery, namely 35,000 guns, 160,000 maeliine guns, 
2,700,000 rifles, besides the tools and machinery necessary 
for their manufacture. Destruction of all arsenals. 
Destruction of the German fleet, which must be limited to 
the proportions mentioned in Art. 181. 

Creation of inter-allied military commissions of control 
to supervise and enforce the carrying out of the military 
and naval clauses, at the expense of Germany and with 
the right to install themselves in the seat of the central 
government. 

Occupation as a guarantee, for a period of fifteen years 
after the application of the treaty, of the bridgeheads and 
of the territories now occupied west of the Rhine (Art. 
428 and 432). If, however, the Commission of Reparations 
finds that Germany refuses wholly or in part to fulfil her 
treaty obligations, the zones specified in Article 421 will be 
immediately occupied by the troops of the Allied and As- 
sociated Powers. 

III.— FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CLAUSES 

The principle being recognized that Germany alone is 
responsible for the war which she willed and which she 
imposed on the rest of the world, Germany is bound to give 
complete and full reparation within the limits specified 
by Art. 232. The amount of the damages for which 
reparation is due will be fixed by the Commission of 
Reparations, consisting of the representatives of the win- 
ning countries. 

The coal fields of the Saar Basin are to be handed over, 
in entire and absolute ownership, free of all liens and obli- 
gations, to France, in compensation for the destruction of 
the coal mines in the north of France. Before the war, in 



THE PEACE TEEATIES 45 

1913, the output of the Saar amounted to 17,000,000 tons. 
The Saar is incorporated in the French douane system and 
after fifteen years will be submitted to a plebiscite. 

Germany may not charge heavier duties on imports from 
Allied countries than on those from any other country. 
This treatment of the most favored nation to be extended 
to all Allied and Associated States does not imply the obli- 
gation of reciprocity (Art. 264). A similar limitation is 
placed on exports, on which no special duty may be levied. 

Exports from Alsace and Lorraine into Germany to be 
exempt from duty for a period of five years, without right 
of reciprocity (Art. 268). 

Germany delivers to the Allies all the steamers of her 
mercantile fleet of over 1,600 tons, half of those between 
1,000 and 1,600 tons, and one-fourth of her fishing vessels. 
Moreover, she binds herself to build at the request of the 
Allies every year, and for a period of five years, 200,000 
tons of shipping, as directed by the Allies, and the value 
of the new. constructions will be credited to her by the Com- 
mission of Reparations (Part viii, 3). 

Besides giving up all her colonies, Germany surrenders 
all her rights and claims on her possessions beyond the 
seas (Art. 119), and all the contracts and conventions in 
favor of German subjects for the construction and ex- 
ploiting of public works, which will be considered as part 
payment of the reparations due. The private property of 
Germans in the colonies, as also the right of Germans to 
live and work there, come under the free jurisdiction of 
the victorious states occupying the colonies, and which 
reserve unto themselves the right to confiscate and liqui- 
date all property and claims belonging to Germans (Art. 
121 and 297). 

The private property of German citizens residing in 



46 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Alsace-Lorraine is subject to the same treatment as that of 
residents in the ex-German colonies. The French Govern- 
ment may confiscate without granting any compensation 
the private property of Germans and of German concerns 
in Alsace-Lorraine, and the sums thus derived will be 
credited toward the partial settlement of eventual French 
claims (Art. 53 and 74). The property of the state and of 
local bodies is likewise surrendered without any compensa- 
tion whatever. The Allies and Associates reserve the right 
to seize and liquidate all property, claims and interests 
belonging, at the date of the ratification of the treaty, to 
German citizens or to firms controlled by them, situated in 
their territories, colonies, possessions and protectorates, in- 
cluding the territories surrendered in accordance with the 
clauses of the treaty (Art. 217). 

Germany loses everything with the exception of her ter- 
ritory : colonies, possessions, rights, commercial invest- 
ments, etc. 

After giving the Saar coal fields in perpetual ownership 
to France in reparation of the temporary damages suffered 
by the French coal mines, the treaty goes on to establish the 
best ways and means to deprive Germany, in the largest 
measure possible, of her coal and her iron. The Saar coal 
fields have been handed over to France absolutely, while 
the war damages of the French mines have been repaired 
or can be repaired in a few years. Upper Silesia being 
subject to the plebiscite with the occupation of the Allied 
troops, Germany must have lost several of her most im- 
portant coal fields had the plebiscite gone against her. 

Germany is forced to deliver in part reparation to 
France 7,000,000 tons of coal a year for ten years, besides 
a quantity of coal equal to the yearly ante-helium output 
of the coal mines of the north of France and of the Pas-de- 



THE PEACE TREATIES 47 

Calais, which were entirely destroyed during the war; the 
said quantity not to exceed 20,000,000 tons in the first 
five years and 8,000,000 tons during the five succeeding 
years (Part vii, 5). Moreover, Germany must give 8,000,- 
000 tons to Belgium for a period of ten years, and to Italy 
a quantity of coal which, commencing at 4,500,000 tons for 
the year 1919-1920, reaches the figure of 8,500,000 tons in 
the five years after 1923-1924, To Luxemburg, Germany 
must provide coal in the same average quantity as in pre- 
war times. Altogether Germany is compelled to hand over 
to the winners as part reparation about 25,000,000 tons of 
coal a year. 

For three years Polish exports to Germany, and for 
five years exports from Luxemburg into Germany, will 
be free of all duty, without right of reciprocity (Art. 268). 

The Allies have the right to adopt, in the territory on 
the left bank of the Khine, occupied by their troops, a 
special customs regime both as regards imports and exports 
(Art. 270). 

After having surrendered, as per Par. 7 of the armistice 
terms, 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 trucks and carriages 
with all their accessories and fittings (Art. 250), Germany 
must hand over the railway systems of the territories she 
has lost, with all the rolling stock in a good state of preser- 
vation, and this measure applies even to Russian Poland 
occupied by Germany during the war (Art. 371). 

The German transport system is placed under control, 
and the administration of the Elbe, the Rhine, the Oder, 
the Danube, owing to the fact that they pass through 
more than one state and give access to the sea, is entrusted 
to inter-allied commissions. In all these commissions Ger- 
many is represented by a small minority. France and 
Great Britain, who are not directly interested, have 



48 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

numerous representatives on all tlie important river com- 
missions, while on the Rhine commission Germany has only 
four votes out of nineteen (Art. 332 to 337). A privilege 
of first degree is established on all production and re- 
sources of the German States to insure the payment of 
reparations and other charges resulting from the treaty 
(Art. 248). 

The total cost of the Allied and Associated Armies will 
be borne by Germany, including the upkeep of men and 
beasts, pay the lodging, heating, clothing, etc., and even 
veterinary services, motor-lorries and automobiles. All 
these expenses must be reimbursed in gold marks 
(Art. 249). 

The privilege, as per Art. 248 of the treaty, is to be 
applied in the following order : 

(a) Reimbursement of expenses for the armies of oc- 
cupation during the armistice and after the peace treaty. 

(&) Payment of the reparations as established by the 
treaty or treaties or supplementary conventions. 

(c) Other expenses deriving from the armistice terms, 
from the peace treaty and from other supplementary terms 
and conventions (Art. 251). Restitution, on the basis of 
an estimate presented sixty days after the application of 
the treaty by the Commission of Reparations, of the live 
stock stolen or destroyed by the Germans and necessary for 
the reconstruction of the invaded countries, with the right 
to exact from Germany, as part reparations, the delivery 
of machinery, heating apparatus, furniture, etc. 

Reimbursement to Belgium of all the sums loaned to 
her by the Allied and Associated Powers during the war. 

Compensation for the losses and damages sustained by 
the civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers 
during the period in which they were at war with Germany 
(Art. 232 and Part vii, 1). 



THE PEACE TREATIES 49 

Payment, during the first two years, of twenty billion 
marks in gold or by the delivery of goods, shipping, etc., 
on account of compensation (Art. 235). 

The reparations owed by Germany concern chiefly : 

1. Damages and loss of life and property sustained by 
the civilian population. 

2. Damages sustained by civilian victims of cruelty, 
violence or ill-treatment. 

3. Damages caused on occupied or invaded territories. 

4. Damages through cruelty to and ill-treatment of 
prisoners of war. 

5. Pensions and compensations of all kinds paid by the 
Allied and Associated Powers to the military victims of the 
war and to their families. 

6. Subsidies paid by the Allied and Associated Powers 
to the families and other dependents of men having served 
in the army, etc., etc. (Partvii, 1). These expenses, which 
have been calculated at varying figures, commencing from 
350 billions, have undergone considerable fluctuations. 

I have given the general lines of the Treaty of 
Versailles. 

The other treaties, far less important, inasmuch 
as the situation of all the losing countries was 
already well defined, especially as regards terri- 
torial questions, by the Treaty of Versailles, are cast 
in the same mold and contain no essential variation. 

Now these treaties constitute an absolutely new 
fact, and no one can affirm that the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles is in the least degree derived from the re- 
peated declarations of the Entente and from Wil- 
son's solemn pledges uttered in the name of those 
who took part in the war. 



50 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

If the terms of the armistice were deeply in con- 
trast with the pledges to which the Entent Powers 
had bound themselves before the whole world, the 
Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties patterned 
upon it are a deliberate negation of all that had been 
promised, amounting to a debt of honor, and which 
had contributed much more powerfully toward the 
defeat of the enemy than the entry in the field of 
many fresh divisions. 

In the state of extreme exhaustion in which both 
conquerors and losers found themselves in 1918, in 
the terrible suffering of the Germanic group of bel- 
ligerents, deprived for four years of sufficient nour- 
ishment and of the most elementary necessaries of 
life, in the moral collapse which had taken the place 
of boasting and temerity, the words of Wilson, who 
pledged himself to a just peace and established its 
terais, proclaiming them to the world, had com- 
pletely broken down whatever force of resistance 
there still remained. They were the most powerful 
instruments of victory, and if not the essential cause, 
certainly not the least important among the causes 
which brought about the collapse of the Central 
Empires. 

Germany had been deeply hit by the armistice. 
Obliged to hand over immediately 5,000 locomotives 
and 150,000 railway trucks and carriages at the very 
time when she had to demobilize, during the first 
months she found her traffic almost completely 
paralyzed. 

Every war brings virulent germs of revolution in 
the vanquished countries. The y^ar of 1870 gave 



THE PEACE TREATIES 51 

France the impulsive manifestations of the Com- 
mune in exactly the same manner as war gave rise 
in Germany during the first months after the armis- 
tice to a violent revolutionary crisis, overcome not 
without difficulty and still representing a grave 
menace. 

Forced to surrender immediately a large quantity 
of live stock, to demobilize when the best part of her 
railway material had gone, still hampered by the 
blockade, Germany, against the interest of the Allies 
themselves, has been obliged to sacrifice her ex- 
change because, in the absence of sufficient help, she 
has had to buy the most indispensable foodstuffs in 
neutral countries. Her paper currency, which at the 
end of 1918 amounted to twenty-two billion marks, 
not excessive as compared with that of other coun- 
tries, immediately increased with a growing cres- 
cendo till it reached, in a very short time, the figure 
of eighty-eight billions, thus rendering from the very 
first the payment of indemnities in gold extremely 
difficult. 

The most skilled men have been thrust into an 
absolute impossibility of producing. To have de- 
prived Germany of her merchant fleet, built up with 
so much care, means to have deprived the freight 
market of sixty thousand of the most skilled, intelli- 
gent and hard-working seamen. 

But what Germany has lost as a result of the 
treaty surpasses all imagination and can only be 
regarded as a sentence of ruin and decay deliber- 
ately imposed upon a whole people^ 

Germany, without taking into account the coun- 



52 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

tries subject to plebiscite, has lost 7.5 per cent, of 
her population. Should the plebiscites prove un- 
favorable to her, or, as the tendency seems to be, 
should these plebiscites be disregarded, Germany 
would lose 13.5 per cent, of her population. Purely 
German territories have been forcibly wrenched 
from her. What has been done in the case of the 
Saar has no precedents in modern history. It is a 
country of 650,000 inhabitants of whom not even one 
hundred are French, a countiy which has been Ger- 
man for a thousand years, and which was temporar- 
ily occupied by France for purely military reasons. 
In spite of these facts, however, not only have the 
coal fields of the Saar been assigned in perpetuity 
to France as compensation for the damages caused 
to the French mines in the north, but the territory of 
the Saar forms part of the French customs regime 
and mil be subjected after fifteen years to a plebis- 
cite, when such a necessity is absolutely incompre- 
hensible, as the population is purely German and 
has never in any form or manner expressed the in- 
tention of changing its nationality. 

The ebb and flow of peoples in Europe during the 
long war of nationalities has often changed the 
situation of frontier countries. Sometimes it may 
still be regarded as a necessity to include small 
groups of alien race and language in different states 
in order to insure strategically safe frontiers. But, 
with the exception of the necessity for self-defense, 
there is nothing to justify what has been done to 
the detiiment of Germany. 



THE PEACE TREATIES 53 

Wilson had only said that Prance should receive 
compensation for the wrong suffered in 1871 and 
that Belgium should be evacuated and reconstructed. 
What had been destroyed was to have been built up 
again ; but no one had ever thought during the war 
of handing over to Belgium a part, however small, 
of German territory or of surrendering predomin- 
antly and purely German territories to Poland. 

The German colonies covered an area of nearly 
three million square kilometers; they had reached 
an admirable degree of development and were man- 
aged mth the greatest skill and ability. They repre- 
sented an enormous value; nevertheless they have 
been assigned to France, Great Britain and in minor 
proportion to Japan, without figuring at all in the 
reparations account. 

It is calculated that as a result of the treaty, owing 
to the loss of a considerable percentage of her agri- 
cultural area, Germany is twenty-five per cent, the 
poorer in regard to the production of cereals and 
potatoes and ten to twelve per cent, in regard to the 
breeding of live stock. 

The restitution of Alsace-Lorraine (the only 
formal claim advanced by the Entente in its war 
program) has deprived Germany of the bulk of her 
iron-ore production. In 1913 Germany could count 
on 21,000,000 tons of iron from Lorraine, 7,000,000 
from Luxemburg, 138,000 from Upper Silesia and 
7,344 from the rest of her territory. This means 
that Germany is reduced to only 20.41 per cent, of 
her pre-war wealth in iron ore. 



54 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

In 1913 the Saar district represented 8.95 per 
cent, of the total production of coal, and Upper 
Silesia 22.85 per cent. 

Having lost about eighty per cent, of her iron ore 
and large stocks of coal, while her production is 
severely handicapped, Germany, completely disor- 
ganized abroad after the suppression of all economic 
equilibrium, is condemned to look on helplessly while 
the very sources of her national wealth dry up and 
cease to flow. In order to form a correct estimate 
of the facts we must hold in mind that one-fifth of 
Germany's total exports before the war consisted of 
iron and of tools and machinery manufactured in 
large part from German ores. 

If we now consider the fourteen points of Presi- 
dent Wilson, accepted by the Entente as a peace 
program, comparing the actual results obtained by 
the Treaty of Versailles, we are faced with the fol- 
lowing situation: 

1. ''After loyal peace negotiations and the con- 
clusion and signing of peace treaties, secret diplo- 
matic agreements must be regarded as abolished/* 
says Wilson. On the contrary, secret peace negotia- 
tions were protracted for more than six months, and 
no hearing was even granted to the German dele- 
gates who wished to expose their views. By a sys- 
tem of treaties France has created a military al- 
liance with Belgium and Poland, thus completely 
cornering Germany. 

2. Absolute freedom of the sea beyond territorial 
waters. Nothing, as a matter of fact, has been 



THE PEACE TREATIES 55 

changed from the pre-war state of things ; with the 
difference that the losers have had to surrender 
their mercantile fleets and are therefore no longer 
directly interested in the question. 

3. Removal of all economic harriers and equality 
of trade conditions. The treaty imposes on Ger- 
many terms without reciprocity, and almost all En- 
tente countries have already adopted protectionist 
and prohibitive tariffs. 

4. Adequate guarantees to he given and!" received 
for the reduction of armaments to a minimum com- 
patihle with home defense. The treaties have com- 
pelled the vanquished countries to destroy or to sur- 
render their navies, and have reduced the standing 
armies of Germany to 100,000 men, including offi- 
cers, of Bulgaria to 23,000, of Austria to 30,000 (in 
reality only 21,000), of Hungary to 35,000. The con- 
quering states, on the other hand, maintain enor- 
mous armies numerically superior to those which 
they had before the war. France, Belgium and Po- 
land have between them about 1,400,000 men with the 
colors. Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria 
altogether have only 179,000 men under arms, while 
Rumania alone has 206,000 and Poland more than 
450,000 men. 

5. Loyal and straightforward settlement of 
colonial rights and claims, hased chiefly on the ad- 
vantage of the peoples directly concerned. All her 
colonies have been taken from Germany, who needed 
them more than any other country of Continental 
Europe, having a density of population of 123 in- 



56 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

habitants per square kilometer (Italy has a density 
of 133 per square kilometer) while France has 74, 
Spain 40, and European Russia before the war had 
only 24. 

6. Evacuation of all Russian territories and 
cordial cooperation for the reconstruction and de- 
velopment of Russia. For a long time the Entente 
has given its support to the military ventures of 
Koltchak, Judenic, Denikin and Wrangel, all men 
of the old regime. 

7. Evacuation and reconstruction of Belgium. 
This has been done, but to Belgium have been as- 
signed territories which she never dreamed of claim- 
ing before the war. 

8. Liberation of French territories, reconstruc- 
tion of invaded regions and restitution of Alsace- 
Lorraine to France in respect of the territories 
taken from her in 1871. France occupies a dominat- 
ing position in the Saar which constitutes an abso- 
lute denial of the principle of nationality. 

9. Rectification of the Italian frontier, according 
to clearly defined lines of nationality. As these 
lines have never been clearly defined or recognized, 
the solution arrived at has been distasteful both to 
the Italians and to their neighbors. 

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary to he left 
free to unite together or to form autonomous states 
in the manner best suited to their development. As 
a matter of fact the treaties have taken the greatest 
possible number of Germans from Austria and of 
Magyars from Hungary in order to hand them over 



THE PEACE TREATIES 57 

to Poland, to Czecho-Slovakia, to Rumania and to 
Jugo-Slavia, namely to populations for the most 
part inferior to the Germans. 

11. Evacuation of Rumania, Serbia and Mon- 
tenegro. This has been effected, but whereas the 
Entente Powers have always proclaimed their fun- 
damental duty for the reconstruction of Montenegro, 
they all contributed to its disappearance, chiefly at 
the instigation of France. 

12. A limited sovereignty to the Tiirhish parts of 
the Ottoman Empire, liberation of other nation- 
alities and freedom of navigation in the Dardanelles 
placed under international guarantees. What really 
happened was that the Entente Powers immediately 
tried to possess themselves of Asia Minor; but 
events rendered it necessary to adopt a regime of 
mandates because direct sovereignty would have 
been too perilous an experiment. A sense of deep 
perturbation and unrest pervades the whole of 
Islam. 

13. An independent Polish State with popida- 
tions undoubtedly Polish to be founded as a neutral 
state with a free and secure outlet to the sea and 
whose integrity is to be guaranteed by international 
accords. In reality a Polish State has been formed 
with populations undoubtedly non-Polish, having a 
markedly military character and aiming at further 
expansion in Ukranian and German territory. It 
has a population of 31,000,000 inhabitants while it 
should not exceed 18,000,000, and proposes to isolate 
Russia from Germany. Moreover the Free State of 



58 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Danzig, practically dependent on Poland, constitutes 
a standing menace to Germany. 

14. Foundation of the League of Nations for the 
sole purpose of reestablishing order among nations, 
and laying the basis of reciprocal guarantees of ter- 
ritorial integrity and political independence for all 
states, both great and small. After more than two 
years have elapsed since the conclusion of peace and 
three since the armistice, the League of Nations is 
still nothing but a Holy Alliance the object of which 
is to guarantee the privileges of the conquerors. Af- 
ter the vote of the Senate, deserving of all praise 
from every point of view, the United States does 
not form part of the League nor do the losing coun- 
tries, including Germany. 

It is therefore obvious that the most solemn 
pledges on which peace was based have not been 
maintained ; the noble declarations made by the En- 
tente during the war have been forgotten ; forgotten 
all the solemn collective pledges ; forgotten and dis- 
regarded Wilson's proclamations which, without 
being real contracts or treaties, were something far 
more solemn and binding, a pledge taken before 
the whole world at its most tragic hour to give the 
enemy a guarantee of justice. 

Without expressing any opinion on the treaties 
themselves, it can not be denied that the manner in 
which they have been applied has been even worse. 
For the first time in civilized Europe, not during 
the war, when everything was permissible in the 
supreme interests of defense, but now that the war 



THE PEACE TREATIES 59 

is over, the Entente Powers, though maintaining 
armies more numerous than ever, for which the van- 
quished must pay, have occupied German territories, 
inhabited by the most cultured, progressive and 
technically advanced populations in the world, as 
an insult and a slight, with colored troops, men from 
darkest and most barbarous Africa, to act as defend- 
ers of the rights of civilization and to maintain the 
law and order of democracy. 

The acts of barbarism and violence committed in 
the occupied section of Germany are without par- 
allel in modern history and a deep disgrace to 
European civilization. 

The time is not far distant when it will be re- 
garded as a mark of dishonor for the victorious na- 
tions to have made abuse of victory as victorious 
Germany never did, indeed to have exploited victory 
to a greater degree than even those European coun- 
tries which are most frequently and justly accused 
of barbarism. 



HI 

THE PEACE TEEATIES THEIK ORIGIlSr AND AIMS 

How, after the solemn pledges undertaken during 
the war, a peace could have been concluded which 
practically negatives all the principles professed 
during the war and all the obligations entered into, 
is easily explained when we note the progress of 
events from the autumn of 1918 to the end of the 
spring of 1919. I took no direct part in those events, 
as I had no share in the government of Italy from 
January to the end of June, 1919, the period during 
w^hich the Treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain- 
en-Laye were being prepared. The Orlando Minis- 
try was resigning when the Treaty of Versailles 
was drawn up for signature, and the situation which 
confronted the Ministry of which I was head was 
clearly defined. Nevertheless I asked the minister 
of foreign affairs and the delegates of the preced- 
ing Cabinet to put their signatures to it. Signing 
was a necessity, and it fell to me later on to put my 
signature to the ratification. 

The Treaty of Versailles and those which have 
followed with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Tur- 
key have been validly signed, and they pledge the 
good faith of the countries which have signed them. 

60 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 61 

But in the application of them there is need of great 
breadth of view; there is need of dispassionate study 
to see if they can be maintained, if the fulfilment of 
the impossible or unjust conditions demanded of the 
conquered countries will not do more harm to the 
conquerors, will not, in point of actual fact, pave 
the way to their ruin. 

If there is one thing, Lloyd George has said, 
which will never be forgotten or forgiven, it is 
arrogance and injustice in the hour of triumph. We 
have never tired of saying that Germany is the most 
barbarous among civilized countries, that under her 
civilization is hidden all the barbarism of medieval 
times, that she puts into practise the doctrine of 
might over right. At the present moment it is our 
duty to ask ourselves whether the principles which 
we have for so long been attributing to Germany 
have not passed over to the other side in a form 
which is even more fierce and degenerate, and 
whether in our own hearts there is not a bitterness 
of hatred clouding our judgment and robbing our 
program of all action that can do real good. 

Prussia won the war against Austria-Hungary in 
1866, and did not ask for or impose any really 
onerous terms. It was contented with having re- 
gained hegemony among the German people. Prus- 
sia conquered France in 1870. It was an unjust 
war, and Prussia laid do^vn two unjust conditions: 
Alsace-Lorraine and the indemnity of five billion 
francs. As soon as the indemnity was paid — and it 
was an indemnity that could be paid in one lump 



62 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

sum — Prussia evacuated the occupied territory. It 
did not claim of France its colonies or its fleet, it 
did not impose the reduction of its armaments or 
control of its transport after the peace. The Treaty 
of Frankfort is a humanitarian act compared with 
the Treaty of Versailles. 

If Germany had won the war — Germany to whom 
we have always attributed the worst possible inten- 
tions — what could it have done that the Entente has 
not done? It is possible that, as it is gifted with 
more practical common sense, it might have laid 
down less impossible conditions in order to gain a 
secure advantage without ruining the conquered 
countries. 

There are about ninety millions of Germans in 
Europe, and perhaps fifteen millions in different 
countries outside Europe. But in the heart of 
Europe they represent a great ethnic unity; they 
are the largest and most compact national group in 
that continent. With all the good and bad points of 
their race, too methodical and at the same time 
easily depressed by a severe setback, they are still 
the most cultivated people on earth. It is impossible 
to imagine that they can disappear, much less that 
they can reconcile themselves to live in a condition 
of slavery. On the other hand, the Entente has 
built on a foundation of shifting sand a Europe full 
of small states poisoned with imperialism and in 
ruinous conditions of economy and finance, and a 
too great Poland without a national basis and neces- 
sarily the enemy of Russia and of Germany. 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 63 

No people has always been victorious ; the peoples 
who have fought most wars in modem Europe, Eng- 
lish, French and Germans, have had alternate vic- 
tories and defeats. A defeat often carries in its 
train reconsideration which is followed by renewed 
energy: the greatness of England is largely due to 
its steadfast determination to destroy the Napole- 
onic Empire. What elevates men is this steadfast 
and persevering effort, and a series of such collec- 
tive efforts carries a nation to a high place. 

There is nothing lasting in the existing groupings. 
At the moment of common danger eternal union and 
unbreakable solidarity are proclaimed ; but both are 
mere literary expressions. 

Great Britain, the country which has the least need 
to make war, has been at war for centuries with 
nearly all the European countries. There is one 
country only against which it has never made war, 
not even when a commercial challenge from the 
mercantile Republics of Italy seemed possible. That 
country is Italy. This proves that the attitude of 
Italy is not and can not be in opposition to British 
policy, and indeed that between the two nations 
there is complete agreement in European conti- 
nental policy. It is the common desire of the two 
nations, though perhaps for different reasons, that 
no one state shall have hegemony on the continent. 
But between the years 1688 and 1815 Great Britain 
and France were at war for sixty-one years: for 
sixty-one years, that is, out of a hundred and twenty- 
seven there was a state of war between the two. 



64 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

General progress, evinced in various ways, above 
all in respect for and in the autonomy of other 
peoples, is a guarantee for all. No peoples are 
always victorious, and no peoples are always 
defeated. In the time of Napoleon the First the 
French derided the lack of fighting spirit in the 
German peoples, producers of any number of 
philosophers and writers. They would have laughed 
at any one who suggested the possibility of any 
early German militaiy triumph. After 1815 the 
countries of the Holy Alliance would never have be- 
lieved in the possibility of the revolutionary spirit 
being reawakened; they were sure of lasting peace 
in Europe. In 1871 the Germans had no doubt at 
all that they had finally smothered France ; now the 
Entente thinks that it has finally smothered Ger- 
many. 

But civilization has gained something: it has 
gained that collection of rules, moral conditions, 
sentiments, international regulations, which tend 
both to mitigate violence and to regulate in a form 
which is tolerable, if not always just, relations be- 
tween conquerors and conquered, above all, a re- 
spect for the liberty and autonomy of the latter. 

Now, the treaties which have been made are, from 
the moral point of view, inmaeasurably worse than 
any consummated in former days, in that they carry- 
Europe back to a phase of civilization which was 
thought to be over and done with centuries ago. 
They are a danger too. For as every one who takes 
vengeance does so in a degree greater than the 



TEEATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 65 

damage suffered, if one supposes for a moment that 
the conquered of to-day may be the conquerors of 
to-morrow, to what lengths of violence, degradation 
and barbarism may not Europe be dragged? 

Every effort, then, should now be made to follow 
the opposite road to that traversed up to the present, 
the more so in that the treaties can not be carried 
out ; and if it is desired that the conquered countries 
shall pay compensation to the conquerors, at least 
in part, for the most serious damage, then the line 
to be followed must be based on realities instead of 
on violence. 

But before trying to see how and why the treaties 
can not be carried out, it may be well to consider 
how the actual system of treaties has been reached, 
in complete opposition to all that was said by the 
Entente during the war and to President Wilson's 
fourteen points. At the same time ought to be ex- 
amined the causes which led in six months from the 
declarations of the Entente and of President Wil- 
son to the Treaty of Versailles. 

The most important cause for what has happened 
was the choice of Paris as the meeting-place of the 
Conference. After the war Paris was the least fitted 
of any place for the holding of a Peace Conference, 
and in the two French leaders, the President of the 
Eepublic, Poincare, and the President of the Council 
of Ministers, Clemenceau, even if the latter was 
more adaptable in mind and more open to considera- 
tion of arguments on the other side, were two tem- 
peraments driving inevitably to extremes. Victory 



66 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

had come in a way that surpassed all expectation; 
a people that, living through every day the war had 
lasted, had passed through every sorrow, privation, 
agony, had now but one thought, to destroy the 
enemy. The atmosphere of Paris was fiery. The 
decision of the peace terms to be imposed on the 
enemy was to be taken in a city which a few months 
before, one might really say a few weeks before, had 
been under the fire of the long-range guns invented 
by the Germans, in hourly dread of enemy aero- 
planes. Even now it is inexplicable that President 
Wilson did not realize the situation which must 
inevitably come about. It is possible that the delir- 
ium of enthusiasm with which he was received at 
Paris may have given him the idea that it was in 
him alone that the people trusted, may have made 
him take the welcome given to the representative of 
the deciding factor of the war as the welcome to the 
principles which he had proclaimed to the world. 
Months later, when he left France amid general in- 
difference if not distrust, President Wilson must 
have realized that he had lost, not popularity, but 
prestige, the one sure element of success for the head 
of a government, much more so for the head of a 
state. It was inevitable that a peace conference held 
in Paris, only a few months after the war, with the 
direction and preparation of the work almost en- 
tirely in French hands and with Clemenceau at the 
head of everything, should reach the conclusion it 
did reach; all the more so when Italy held apart 
right from the beginning, and England, though con- 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 67 

vinced of the mistakes being made, could not act 
freely and effectively. 

The first duty of the Peace Conference was to 
restore a state of equilibrium and reestablish condi- 
tions of life. Taking Europe as an economic unity, 
broken by the war, it was necessary first of all and 
in the interests of all to reestablish conditions of 
life which would make it possible for the crisis to 
be overcome with the least possible damage. 

I do not propose to tell the story of the Confer- 
ence, and it is as well to say at once that I do not 
intend to make use of any document placed in my 
hands for official purposes. But the story of the 
Paris Conference can now be told with practical 
completeness after what has been published by J. M. 
Keynes in his noble book on the Economic Conse- 
quences of the War and by the American Secretary 
of State, Robert Lansing, and after the statements 
made in the British and French Parliaments by 
Lloyd George and Clemenceau. But from the politi- 
cal point of view the most interesting document is 
still Andre Tardieu's book. The Truth about the 
Treaty, to which Clemenceau wrote a preface and 
which expresses, from the point of view of the 
French Delegation at the Conference, the program 
which France laid before itself and what it obtained. 
This book explains how the principal decisions were 
taken, and indeed can be fairly considered to show 
in a more reliable way than any other publication 
extant how the work of the Conference proceeded. 
For not only was M. Tardieu one of the French dele- 




68 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

gates to the Conference, one of those who signed the 
Versailles Treaty, but also he prepared the plan 
of work as well as the solutions of the most im- 
portant questions in his capacity of trusted agent of 
the prime minister. 

The determination in the mind of President Wil- 
son when he came to Paris was to carry through his 
program of the League of Nations. He was fickle in 
his infallibility, but he had the firmest faith that he 
was working for the peace of the world and above 
all for the glory of the United States. Of European 
things he was supremely ignorant. We are bound 
to recognize his good faith, but we are not in the 
least bound on that account to admit his capacitj^ to 
tackle the problems which mth his academic sim- 
plicity he set himself to solve. When he arrived in 
Europe he had not even prepared in outline a scheme 
of what the League of Nations was to be ; the princi- 
pal problems found him unprepared, and the duty of 
the crowd of experts (sometimes not too expert) who 
surrounded him seemed rather to be to demonstrate 
the truth of his idea than to prepare materials which 
might serve as a basis for well pondered decisions. 

He could have made no greater mistake than he 
did in coming to Europe to take part in the meet- 
ings of the Conference. His figure lost relief at 
once, in a way it seemed to lose dignity. The head 
of a state was taking part in meetings of heads of 
governments, one of the latter presiding. It was 
a giant compelled to live in a cellar and thereby sac- 
rificing his height. He was surrounded by formal 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 69 

respect and in some decisions he exercised almost 
despotic authority, but his work was none the less 
disordered; there was a semblance of giving in to 
him while he was giving away his entire program 
without being aware of it. 

In his ignorance of European things he was 
brought, without recognizing it, to accept a series of 
decisions, not superficially in opposition to his four- 
teen points but which did actually nullify them. 

Great Britain is part of Europe but is not on the 
Continent of Europe. While Germany, France, 
Italy, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Holland, Belgium, 
etc., live the same life, are one in thought. Great 
Britain goes her o^vn way and lives her proud island 
life. If she had any moment of supreme anxiety 
during the war, it was in the spring and summer of 
1917 during the terrible threat of the destruction of 
her shipping by submarines and the inability of 
construction to keep pace with it. But after the 
defeat of Germany, Great Britain found herself with 
a fleet far superior to those of all the rest of Europe 
put together; once more she broke away from Con- 
tinental Europe. 

Lloyd George, with swiftly acting brain and clear 
insight, undoubtedly the most remarkable man at the 
Paris Conference, found himself in a difficult situa- 
tion between President Wilson's pronouncements, 
some of them, like that regarding the freedom of the 
seas, undefined and dangerous, and the claims of 
France tending, after the recent brutal and sudden 
aggression it had had to meet, not toward a true 



70 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

peace and the reconstruction of Europe, but toward 
the vivisection of Germany. In one of the first mo- 
ments, just before the general elections, Lloyd 
George, too, promised measures of the greatest se- 
verity, the trial of the kaiser, the punishment of all 
guilty of atrocities, compensation for all who had 
suffered from the war, the widest and most com- 
plete indemnity. But such pronouncements gave 
way before his clear realization of facts, and later on 
he tried in vain to put the Conference on the plane 
of such realization. 

Italy, as M. Tardieu says very plainly in The 
Truth about the Treaty, carried no weight in the 
Conference. In the meetings of the prime ministers 
and President Wilson "the tone was conversational. 
Neither pomp nor pose. Signor Orlando spoke but 
little; Italy's interest in the Conference was far too 
much confined to the question of Fiume, and her 
share in the debates was too limited as a result. 
It resolved itself into a three-cornered conversation 
between Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George." 
The Italian Government came into the war in May, 
1915, on the basis of the London Agreement of the 
preceding April, and it had never thought of claim- 
ing Fiume either before the war when it was free to 
lay down conditions or during the progress of the 
war. 

The Italian people had always been kept in ignor- 
ance of the principles established in the London 
Agreement. One of the men chiefly responsible for 
the American policy openly complained to me that 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 71 

when the United States came into the war no noti- 
fication was given them of the London Agreement in 
which were defined the future conditions of part of 
Europe. A far worse mistake was made in the 
failure to communicate the London Agreement to 
Serbia, which would certainly have accepted it with- 
out hesitation in the terrible position in which it 
then was. 

But the most serious thing of all was that Italian 
ministers were unaware of its provisions till after 
its publication in London by the organ of the Jugo- 
slavs, which had evidently received the text from 
Petrograd, where the Bolsheviks had published it. 
In Italy the London Agreement was a mystery to 
every one ; its text was known only to the presidents 
of the Council and the minister for foreign affairs 
of the War Cabinets. Thus only four or five people 
knew about it, secrecy was strictly kept, and, more- 
over, it can not possibly be said that it was in accord- 
ance either with national ideals or the currents of 
public opinion, much less with any intelligent con- 
ception of Italy's needs and Italy's future. 

The framers of the London Agreement never 
thought of Fiume. Indeed they specifically ex- 
pressed their willingness that it should go to 
Croatia, whether in the case of Austria-Hungary re- 
maining united or of the detachment of Croatia from 
it. It is not true that it was through the opposition 
of Russia or of Prance that the Italian framers of 
the London Agreement gave up all claim to Piume. 
There was no opposition because there was no claim, 



72 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

The representatives of Russia and France have told 
me officially that no renunciation took place through 
any action on the part of their governments, because 
no claim was ever made to them. On the other hand, 
after the armistice, and when it became known 
through the newspapers that the London Agreement 
gave Fiume to Croatia, a very strong movement for 
Fiume arose, fanned by the government itself, and 
an equally strong movement in Fiume also. 

If, in the London Agreement, instead of claiming 
large areas of Dalmatia, which are entirely or almost 
entirely Slav, provision had been made for the con- 
stitution of a State of Fiume placed in a condition 
to guarantee not only the people of Italian nation- 
ality but the economic interests of all the peoples in 
it and surrounding it, there is no doubt that such a 
claim on the part of Italy would have gone through 
without opposition. 

During the Paris Conference the representatives 
of Italy showed hardly any interest at all in the 
problems concerning the peace of Europe, the situa- 
tion of the conquered peoples, the distribution of 
raw materials, the regulation of the new states and 
their relations mth the victor countries. They con- 
centrated all their efforts on the question of Fiume, 
that is to say on the one point in which Italian ac- 
tion was fundamentally weak in that, when it was 
free to enter into the war and lay do^vn conditions 
of peace, at the moment when the Entente was with- 
out America's invaluable assistance and was begin- 
ning to doubt the capacity of Russia to carry on, it 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 73 

had never even asked for Fiume in its War Treaty, 
that it had made the inexplicable mistake of neglect- 
ing to communicate that treaty to the United States 
when that comitry came into the war, and to Serbia 
at the moment when Italy's effort had most con- 
tributed to bring her needed assistance. At the con- 
ference Italy had no directing policy. It had been 
a part of the system of the German Alliance, but it 
had left its Allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, 
because it recognized that the war was unjust, and 
had remained neutral for ten months. Then, enter- 
ing into the war freely and without obligation, there 
was one road for it to follow, that of proclaiming 
solemnly and defending the principles of democracy 
and justice. Indeed, that was a moral duty in that 
the break with the two countries with which Italy 
had been in alliance for thirty-three years became a 
matter not only of honesty but of duty solely 
through the injustice of the cause for which they had 
proclaimed an offensive war. It was not possible 
for Italy to go to war to realize the dream of uniting 
the Italian lands to the nation, for she had entered 
the system of Alliance of the Central Empires and 
had stayed there long years while having all the 
time Italian territories unjustly subjected to Aus- 
tria-Hungary. The annexation of the Italian lands 
to the Kingdom of Italy had to be the consequence 
of the affirmation of the principles of nationality, 
not the reason for going to war. In any case, for 
Italy, which had laid on itself in the London Agree- 
ment the most absurd limitations, which had con- 



74 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

fined its war aims within exceedingly modest limits, 
which had no share in the distribution of the wealth 
of the conquered countries, which came out of the 
war without raw materials and without any share 
in Germany's colonial empire, it was a matter not 
only of high duty but of the greatest utility to pro- 
claim and uphold all those principles which the En- 
tente had so often and so publicly proclaimed as its 
war policy and its war aims. But in the Paris Con- 
ference Italy hardly counted. Without any definite 
idea of its own policy, it followed France and the 
United States, sometimes it followed Great Britain. 
There was no affirmation of principles at all. The 
country which, among all the European warring 
Powers, had suffered most severely in proportion to 
its resources and should have made the greatest 
effort to free itself from the burdens imposed on 
it, took no part in the most important decisions. It 
should be added that these Avere arrived at between 
March 24 and May 7, while the Italian representa- 
tives were absent from Paris or had returned there 
humiliated without having been recalled. 

After interminable discussions which decided very 
little, especially with regard to the League of Na- 
tions which arose before the nations were consti- 
tuted and could live, real vital questions were 
tackled, as is seen from the report of the Confer- 
ence, on March 24, and it is a fact that between that 
date and May 7 the whole treaty was put in shape : 
territorial questions, financial questions, economic 
questions, colonial questions. Now, at that very mo- 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 75 

ment, on account of the question of Fiume and 
Fiume alone, for some inscrutable reason the Italian 
delegates thought good to retire from the Confer- 
ence, to which they returned later without being in- 
vited, and during that time all the demonstrations 
against President Wilson took place in Italy, not 
without some grave responsibility on the part of the 
government. Italy received least consideration in 
the peace treaties among all the conquering coun- 
tries. It was practically put on one side. 

It has to be noted that both in the armistice and 
in the peace treaty the most serious decisions were 
arrived at almost incidentally; moreover they were 
always vitiated by slight concessions apparently of 
no importance. On November 2, 1918, when the 
representatives of the different nations met at Paris 
to fix the terms of armistice, M. Tardieu relates, the 
question of reparation for damages was decided 
quite incidentally. It is worth while reproducing 
what he says in his book, taken from the official 
report : 

M. Clemenceau: I would like to return now to the 
question of reparations for damages. It would not be 
understood with us in France if we did not insert a clause 
in the Armistice to this effect. All I am asking for is the 
addition of three words, "Reparations for damages" with- 
out further comment. 

The following discussion ensues. 

M. Hymans : Would that be a condition of armistice ? 

M. SoNNiNO : It is rather a condition of peace. 



76 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

M. BoNAB Law : It is useless to insert in the conditions 
of armistice a clause that can not be rapidly fulfilled. 

M. Clemenceau : I only want to lay down the principle. 
You must not forget that the French people is one of those 
which have suffered most. They would not understand if 
we did not make some allusion to this matter. 

M. Lloyd George: If you are going to deal with the 
reparations for damages on land, you must also mention 
the question of reparations for the ships sunk. 

M. Clemenceau : That is all covered by my three words, 
"Eeparations for damages." I beg the Council to under- 
stand the feeling of the French people. 

M. Vessitch : And of the Serbian. . . . 

M. Hymans: And of the Belgian. . . . 

M. House: As this is a matter of importance to all, I 
propose the adoption of M. Clemenceau 's addition. 

M. Bonar Law : It is already mentioned in our letter to 
President Wilson. It is useless to repeat it. 

M. Orlando : I accept it in principle although no men- 
tion has been made of it in the conditions of the Austrian 
Armistice. 

The addition of ** Reparations for damages" is then 
adopted. M. Klotz suggests that the addition be preceded 
by the words "with the reservation that any future claims 
by the Allies and the United States remain unaffected." 
This is decided. 

If I were at liberty to publish the official report 
of the doings of the Conference while the various 
peace treaties were being prepared, as MM. Poin- 
care and Tardieu have published secret acts, it 
would be seen that the proceedings were very much 
the same in every case. Meanwhile we may confine 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 77 

ourselves to an examination of the report as given 
by M. Tardieu. 

The question of reparations for damages was not 
a condition of the armistice. It had not been ac- 
cepted. Clemenceau brings the question up again 
solely in deference to French public opinion. The 
suggestion is to write in simply the three words: 
Reparations for damages. It is true that these three 
words determine a policy, and that there is no men- 
tion of it in the claims of the Entente, in the four- 
teen points of President Wilson, or in the armistice 
between Italy and Austria-Hungary. In his four- 
teen points Wilson confined himself, in the matter 
of damages, to the following claims: (1) Recon- 
struction in Belgium, (2) Reconstruction of French 
territory invaded, (3) Reparation for territory in- 
vaded in Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania. There 
is no other claim or statement in the fourteen points. 
On the other hand the pronouncement, ' ' Reparations 
for damages," covered, or came later to cover, any 
claim for damage by land or sea. 

The representatives of Belgium, Italy and Great 
Britain remark that it is a condition of peace, not 
of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it a question 
of regard and consideration for France. France 
would not understand there being no mention of it ; 
there was no desire to define anything, only just to 
mention it, and in three simple words. '*I ask you," 
says Clemenceau, *'to put yourselves into the spirit 
of the people of France. ' ' At once the British repre- 
sentative notes the necessity of a clear statement 



78 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

regarding reparations for losses at sea through sub- 
marines and mines ; and all, the Serbian, the Belgian 
and, last of all, the Italian, at once call attention to 
their own damages. Mr. House, not realizing the 
wide and serious nature of the claim, says that it is 
an important question for all, while America had 
already stated, in the words of the president of the 
republic, that it renounced all indemnity of any 
nature whatsoever. 

So was established, quite incidentally, the princi- 
ple of indemnity for damages which gave the treaty 
a complete turn away from the spirit of the pro- 
nouncements by the Entente and the United States. 
Equally incidentally were established all the declara- 
tions in the treaty, the purpose of which is not easy 
to understand except in so far as it is seen in the 
economic results which may accrue. 

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles states that 
the Allied and Associated Governments affirm, and 
Germany accepts, the responsibility of Germany and 
her Allies for causing all the loss and damage to 
which the Allied and Associated Governments and 
their peoples have been subjected as a consequence 
of the war imposed on them by the aggression of 
Germany and her allies. 

Article 177 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en- 
Laye states in the same way that the Allied and As- 
sociated Governments affirm, and Austria-Hungary 
accepts, the responsibility of Austria and her allies, 
etc. 

This article is common to all the treaties, and it 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 79 

would have no more than historic and philosophic 
interest if it were not followed by another article in 
which the Allied and Associated Governments recog- 
nize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria- 
Hungary, etc.,) are not adequate, after taking into 
account permanent diminutions of such resources 
which will result from other provisions of the pres- 
ent treaty, to make complete reparation for all such 
loss and damage. The Allied and Associated Gov- 
ernments, however, require, and the conquered state 
undertakes, that she will make compensation for all 
damage done to the civilian population of the Allied 
and Associated Powers and to their property during 
the period of the belligerency of each as an Allied 
or Associated Power by such aggression by land, by 
sea and from the air, and in general all damage as 
defined in the treaty, comprising many of the bur- 
dens of war (war pensions and compensations to sol- 
diers and their families, cost of assistance to fam- 
ilies of those mobilized during the war, etc.). 

There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, 
than to take your enemy by the throat after you 
have beaten him and force him to declare that all 
the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of 
no use whatever, either to the conqueror, because 
no importance can be attributed to an admission 
extorted by force; or to the conquered, because he 
knows that there is no moral significance in being 
forced to state what one does not believe, or for 
third parties, because they are well aware of the 
circumstances under which the declaration was 



80 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted 
to establish a moral reason — I do not like to say a 
moral alibi — for accepting, as he was constrained by 
necessity to accept, all those conditions that were the 
negation of what he had solemnly laid do^vn, the mor- 
al pledge of his people, of the American democracy. 

Germany and the conquered comitries have ac- 
cepted the conditions imposed on them with the 
reserve that they feel that they are not bound by 
them, even morally, in the future. The future will 
pour ridicule on this new form of treaty which en- 
deavors to justify excessive and absurd demands, 
which will have the effect of destroying the enemy 
rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using 
a forced declaration which has no value at all. 

I have always detested German imperialism, and 
also the phases of exaggerated nationalism which 
have grown up in every country after the war and 
have been eliminated one after the other through the 
simple fact of their being common to all countries, 
but only after having brought the greatest possible 
harm to all the peoples, and I can not say that Ger- 
many and her allies were solely responsible for the 
war which devastated Europe and threw a dark 
shadow over the life of the whole world. That state- 
ment, which we all made during the war, was a 
weapon to be used at the time ; now that the war is 
over, it can not be looked on as a serious argument. 

An honest and thorough examination of all the 
diplomatic documents, all the agreements and rela- 
tions of pre-war days, compels me to declare 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 81 

solemnly that the responsibility for the war does not 
lie solely on the defeated countries; that Germany 
may have desired war and prepared for it mider the 
influence of powerful industrial interests, metal- 
lurgic, for instance, responsible for the extreme 
views of newspapers and other publications, but still 
all the warring countries have their share of respon- 
sibility in differing degree. It can not be said that 
there existed in Europe two groups with a moral 
conception differing to the point of complete con- 
trast; on one side, Germany, Austria-Hungary, 
Turkey and Bulgaria, responsible for the war, which 
they imposed by their aggression; on the other, the 
peaceful peoples who were desirous only of carrying 
on their development in peace. It is not true that 
there were ranged on the one side the despotic na- 
tions and that on the other were to be found all the 
free and independent peoples. By the side of Eng- 
land, France, Italy and the United States there was 
Russia, which must bear, if not the greatest, a very 
great responsibility for what happened. Nor is it 
true that armament expenses in the ten years pre- 
ceding the war were greater in the Central Empires, 
or, to put it better, in the states forming the Triple 
Alliance, than in the countries which later formed 
the European Entente. 

It is not true that only in the case of Germany 
were the war aims imperialist, and that the Entente 
countries came in without desire of conquest. Put- 
ting aside for the moment what one sees in the 
treaties which have followed the war, it is worth 



82 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

while considering what would have happened if Rus- 
sia had won the war instead of being torn to pieces 
before victory came. Russia would have had all the 
Poland of the eighteenth century (with the appar- 
ent autonomy promised by the czar), nearly all Tur- 
key in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part of 
Asia Minor. Russia, mth already the greatest 
existing land empire and at least half the population 
not Russian, would have gained fresh territories 
mth fresh non-Russian populations, putting the 
Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very 
difficult situation indeed. 

It can not be said that in the ten years preceding 
the war Russia did not do as much as Germany to 
bring unrest into Europe. It was on account of 
Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual 
cause of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Aus- 
tria-Hungary. The unending strife in the Balkans 
was caused by Russia in no less degree than by Aus- 
tria-Hungary, and all the great European nations 
shared, with opposing views, in the policy of East- 
ern expansion. 

The judgment of peoples and of events, given the 
uncertainty of policy as expressed in parliament and 
newspapers, is variable to the last degree. It will 
be enough to recall the varjdng judgment upon Ser- 
bia during the last ten years in the Press of Great 
Britain, France and Italy : the people of Serbia have 
been described as criminals and heroes, assassins 
and martyrs. No one would have anything to do 
with Serbia ; later Serbia was raised to the skies. 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 83 

The documents published by Kautsky and by other 
authors and political writers in Germany and in Hol- 
land, and similar publications issued in neutral coun- 
tries, and those revealed from time to time by the 
Moscow Government prove that the preparation for 
and the driving toward war was not only on the part 
of the Central Empires, but also, and in no less de- 
gree, on the part of the other states. One point will 
always remain inexplicable : why Russia should have 
taken the superlatively serious step of general mo- 
bilization, which could not be and was not a simple 
measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt that the 
Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. 
After a close examination of events, after the bitter 
feeling of war had passed, in his speech of Decem- 
ber 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly that the war 
broke out without any government having really de- 
sired it ; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, 
stumbling and tripping. 

There were three monarchies in Europe, the Rus- 
sian, 'German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and 
the fact that they were divided into two groups 
necessarily led to war. It was inevitable sooner or 
later. Russia was the greatest danger, the greatest 
threat to Europe; what happened had to happen 
under one form or another. The crazy giant was 
under the charge of one man without intelligence 
and a band of men, the men of the old regime, largely 
without scruples. 

Each country of Europe has its share of respon- 
sibility, Italy not excluded. It is difficult to explain 



84 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

why Italy went to Tripoli in the way in which she 
did in 1911, bringing about the Italo-Turkish War, 
which brought about the two Balkan Wars and the 
policy of adventure of Serbia, which was the inci- 
dent though not the cause of the European War. 

The Libyan adventure, considered now in the 
serene light of reason, can not be looked on as any- 
thing but an aberration. Libya is an immense box 
of sand which never had any value, nor has it now. 
Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan cover more than 
one million one hundred thousand square kilometers 
and have less than nine hundred thousand inhabit- 
ants, of whom even now, after ten years, less than 
a third are under the effective control of Italy. 
With the war and expenses of occupation, Libya has 
cost Italy about seven billion lire, and for a long 
time yet it will be on the debit side in the life of the 
nation. With the same number of billions, most of 
which were spent before the European War, Italy 
could have put in order and utilized her immense 
patrimony of water-power and to-day would be free 
from anxiety about the coal problem by which it is 
actually enslaved. The true policy of the nation 
w^as to gain economic independence, not a barren 
waste. Ignorant people spoke of Libya in Italy as 
a promised land ; in one official speech the king was 
even made to say that Libya could absorb part of 
Italian emigration. That was just a phenomenon of 
madness, for Libya has no value at all from the agri- 
cultural, commercial or military point of view. It 
may pay its way one day, but only if all expenses are 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 85 

cut down and the administrative system is com- 
pletely changed. It may be that, if only from a feel- 
ing of duty toward the inhabitants, Italy can not 
abandon Libya now that she has taken it, but the 
question will always be asked why she did take it, 
why she took it by violence when a series of con- 
cessions could have been obtained without difficulty 
from the Turkish Government. 

The Libyan enterprise, undertaken on an impulse, 
against the opinion of Italy's allies, Austria and 
Germany, against the wish of England and France, 
is a very serious political responsibility for Italy. 

The European War was the consequence of a long 
series of movements, aspirations, agitations. It can 
not be denied, and it is recognized by clear-thinking 
men like Lloyd George, that France and England too 
have by their actions taken on themselves their part 
in the serious responsibility. To say that in the past 
they had never thought of war is to say a thing not 
true. And there is no doubt that all the diplomatic 
documents published before and during the war 
show in Russia, above all, a situation which inevit- 
ably would soon lead to war. In the Balkans, espec- 
ially in Serbia, Russia was pursuing a cynical and 
shameless policy of corruption, nourishing and ex- 
citing every ferment of revolt against Austria-Hun- 
gary. Russian policy in Serbia was really criminal. 
Every one in Germany was convinced that Russia 
was preparing for war. The czar's pacificist ideas 
were of no importance whatever. In absolute mon- 
archies it is an illusion to think that the sovereign, 



86 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

though apparently an autocrat, acts in accordance 
with his own views. His views are almost invariably 
those of the people round him; he does not even 
receive news in its true form, but in the form given 
it by officials. Russia was an unmeldly giant who 
had shown signs of madness long before the actual 
revolution. It is impossible that a collective mad- 
ness such as that which has had possession of Rus- 
sia* for three years could be produced on the spur of 
the moment; the regime of autocracy contained in 
itself the germs of Bolshevism and violence. Bol- 
shevism can not properly be judged by Western no- 
tions; it is not a revolutionary movement of the 
people; it is, as I have said before, the religious 
fanaticism of the Eastern Orthodox grafted upon 
the trunk of czarist despotism. Bolshevism, cen- 
tralizing and bureaucratic, follows the same lines 
as the imperial policy of almost every czar. 

Undoubtedly the greatest responsibility for the 
war lies on Germany. If it has not to bear all the 
responsibility, as the treaties claim, it has to bear 
the largest share ; and the responsibility lies, rather 
than on the shoulders of the emperor and the quite 
ordinary men who surrounded him, on those of the 
military caste and some great industrial groups. 
The crazy writings of General von Bernhardi and 
other disgusting publications of the same sort ex- 
pressed, more than just theoretical views, the real 
hopes and tendencies of the whole military caste. It 
is true enough that there existed in Germany a real 
democratic society under the control of the civil 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 87 

government, but there was the military caste too, 
with privileges in social life and a special position 
in the life of the state. This caste was educated in 
the conception of violence as the means of power 
and grandeur. When a country has allowed the 
military and social theories of General von Bern- 
hardi and the senselessly criminal pronouncements 
of the Emperor William II to prevail for so many 
years, it has put the most formidable weapons pos- 
sible into the hands of its enemies. The people who 
governed Germany for so long have no right to com- 
plain now of the conditions in which their country 
is placed. But the great German people, hard-work- 
ing and persevering, has full right to look on such 
conditions as the negation of justice. The head of 
a European state, a man of the clearest view and 
calmest judgment, speaking to me of the Emperor 
William, of whose character and intellect he thought 
very little, expressed the view that the emperor did 
not want war, but that he would not avoid it when 
he had the chance. 

The truth is that Germany troubled itself very 
little about France. Kinderlen Wachter, the most 
intelligent of the German foreign ministers, and per- 
haps the one most opposed to the war, when he out- 
lined to me the situation as it was ten years ago, 
showed no anxiety at all except in regard to Russia. 
Russia might make war, and it was necessary to be 
ready or to see that it came about at a moment when 
victory was certain if conditions did not change. 
Germany had no reason at all for making war on 



88 THE AVRECK OF EUROPE 

France from the time that it had got well ahead of 
that country in industry, commerce and navigation. 
It is true that there were a certain number of un- 
balanced people in the metal industry who talked 
complacently of French iron and stirred up the yel- 
low Press, just as in France to-day there are many 
industrials with their eyes fixed on German coal 
which they want to seize as far as possible. But the 
intellectuals, the pohticians, even military circles, 
had no anxiety at all except with regard to Russia. 

There were mistaken views in German policy, no 
doubt, but at the same time there was real anxiety 
about her national existence. With a huge popula- 
tion and limited resources, with few colonies, owing 
to her late arrival in the competition for them, Ger- 
many looked on the never-ceasing desire of Russia 
for Constantinople as the ruin of her policy of ex- 
pansion in the East. 

And in actual fact there was but one way by which 
the three great empires, which in population and 
extension of territory dominated the greater part 
of Europe, could avoid war, and that was to join in 
alliance among themselves or at least not to enter 
other alliances. The three great empires divided 
themselves into two allied groups. From that mo- 
ment, given the fact that in each of them the mili- 
tary caste held power, that the principal decisions 
lay in the hands of a few men not responsible to par- 
liament; given the fact that Russia, faithful to her 
traditional policy, aimed to draw into her political 
orbit all the Slav peoples right down to the Adriatic 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 89 

and the ^geaii, and that Austria was leaning toward 
the creation of a third Slav monarchy in the dual 
kingdom, it was inevitable that sooner or later the 
violence, intrigue and corruption with which we are 
familiar should culminate in open conflict. Bis- 
marck always saw that putting Russia and Germany 
up against each other meant war. 

Peoples, like individuals, are far from represent- 
ing with anything approaching completeness such 
social conceptions as we call violence and right, hon- 
esty and bad faith, justice and injustice ; each people 
has its different characteristics, but no one people 
represents good, or another bad, no one represents 
brutality, or another civilization. All these mean- 
ingless phrases were brought out during the war, 
according to which, as was said by one of the prime 
ministers of the Entente, the war was the decisive 
struggle between the forces of autocracy and liberty, 
between the dark powers of evil and violence and 
the radiant powers of good and right. To-day all 
this causes nothing but a smile. Such things are 
just speechifying, and banal at that. Perhaps they 
were a necessity of war-time which might well be 
made use of; when you are fighting for your very 
life you use every means you have; when you are 
in imminent danger you do not choose your weapons, 
you use everything to hand. All the war propaganda 
against the German Empires, recounting, sometimes 
exaggerating, all the crimes of the enemy, claiming 
that all the guilt was on the side of Germany, de- 
scribing German atrocities as a habit, almost a char- 



90 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

acteristic of the German people, deriding German 
culture as a species of liquid in which were bred the 
microbes of moral madness — all this was legitimate, 
perhaps necessary, during the war. The reply to the 
asphyxiating gas of the enemy was not only the 
same gas, but a propaganda calculated to do more 
damage, and which did as much damage as tanks and 
blockade. I myself, as minister in a War Cabinet, 
spoke this language. I accused Germany of being re- 
sponsible for the slaughter and having planned and 
willed it. But, when war is over, nothing should be 
put into a peace treaty except such things as will 
lead to a lasting peace, or the most lasting peace 
compatible with our degree of civilization. 

On January 22, 1917, President Wilson explained 
the reasons why he made the proposal to put an end 
to the war ; he said in the American Senate that the 
greatest danger lay in a peace imposed by con- 
querors after victory. At that time it was said that 
there must be neither conquerors nor conquered. 
A peace imposed after victory would be the cause 
of so much humiliation and such intolerable sacri- 
fices for the conquered side, it would be so severe, 
it would give rise to so much bitter feeling that it 
would not be a lasting peace, but one founded on 
shifting sand. It is strange that President Wilson 
who, while he was in America, clearly saw these 
things, should on his arrival in Europe have little 
by little abandoned all resistance and have assumed 
the terrible responsibility for a peace which the 
American people have not been able to accept. 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 91 

In the spring of 1919, just before the most serious 
decisions were to be taken, Lloyd George put before 
the conference a memorandum entitled ^^Some con- 
siderations for the Peace Conference before they 
finally draft their terms.' ^ 

With his marvelously quick insight, after having 
listened to the speeches of which force was the lead- 
ing motive (the tendency round him was not to estab- 
lish a lasting peace but to vivisect Germany), Lloyd 
George saw that it was not a true peace that was 
being prepared. 

On March 25, 1919, Lloyd George presented the 
following memorandum to the Conference : 



When nations are exhausted by wars in whieli they have 
put forth all their strength and which leave them tired, 
bleeding and broken, it is not difficult to patch up a peace 
that may last until the generation which experienced the 
horrors of the war has passed away. Pictures of heroism 
and triumph only tempt those who know nothing of the 
sufferings and terrors of war. It is therefore compara- 
tively easy to patch up a peace which will last for thirty 
years. 

What is difficult, however, is to draw up a peace which 
will not provoke a fresh struggle when those who have 
had practical experience of what war means have passed 
away. History has proved that a peace which has been 
hailed by a victorious nation as a triumph of diplomatic 
skill and statesmanship, even of moderation, in the long 
run has proved itself to be short-sighted and charged with 



92 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

danger to the victor. The peace of 1871 was believed by 
Germany to insure not only her security but her permanent 
supremacy. The facts have shown exactly the contrary. 
France itself has demonstrated that those who say you 
can make Germany so feeble that she will never be able to 
hit back are utterly wrong. Year by year France became 
numerically weaker in comparison with her victorious 
neighbor, but in reality she became ever more powerful. 
She kept watch on Europe; she made alliance with those 
whom Germany had wronged or menaced ; she never ceased 
to warn the world of its danger, and ultimately she was 
able to secure the overthrow of the far mightier power 
which had trampled so brutally upon her. You may strip 
Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments to a mere 
police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate power; 
all the same, in the end, if she feels that she has been 
unjustly treated in the peace of 1919, she will find means 
of exacting retribution from her conquerors. The impres- 
sion, the deep impression, made upon the human heart by 
four years of unexampled slaughter will disappear with the 
hearts upon which it has been marked by the terrible sword 
of the Great War. The maintenance of peace will then 
depend upon there being no causes of exasperation con- 
stantly stirring up the spirit of patriotism, of justice or of 
fair play to achieve redress. Our terms may be severe, 
they may be stern and even ruthless, but at the same time 
they can be so just that the country on which they are im- 
posed will feel in its heart that it has no right to complain. 
But injustice, arrogance, displayed in the hour of triumph, 
will never be forgotten nor forgiven. 

For these reasons I am, therefore, strongly averse to 
transferring more Germans from German rule to the rule 
of some other nation than can possibly be helped. I can 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 93 

not conceive any greater cause of future war than that 
the German people, who have certainly proved themselves 
one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, 
should be surrounded by a number of small states, many 
of them consisting of people who have never previously set 
up a stable government for themselves, but each of them 
containing large masses of Germans clamoring for reunion 
with their native land. The proposal of the Polish Com- 
mission that we should place 2,100,000 Germans under the 
control of a people of a different religion and which has 
never proved its capacity for stable self-government 
throughout its history, must, in my judgment, lead sooner 
or later to a new war in the east of Europe. "What I have 
said about the Germans is equally true about the Magyars. 
There will never be peace in Southeastern Europe if every 
little state now coming into being is to have a large Magyar 
Irredenta within its borders. 

I would therefore take as a guiding principle of the 
peace that as far as is humanly possible the different races 
should be allocated to their motherlands, and that this 
human criterion should have precedence over considera- 
tions of strategy or economics or communications, which 
can usually be adjusted by other means. 

Secondly, I would say that the duration for the pay- 
ments of reparation ought to disappear if possible with 
the generation which made the war. 

But there is a consideration in favor of a long-sighted 
peace which influences me even more than the desire to 
leave no causes justifying a fresh outbreak thirty years 
hence. There is one element in the present condition of 
nations which differentiates it from the situation as it was 
in 1815. In the Napoleonic Wars the countries were 
equally exhausted, but the revolutionary spirit had spent 



94 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

its force in the country of its birth, and Germany had 
satisfied the legitimate popular demands for the time being 
by a series of economic changes which were inspired by 
courage, foresight and high statesmanship. Even in Rus- 
sia the czar had effected great reforms which were proba- 
bly at that time even too advanced for the half-savage 
population. The situation is very different now. The 
revolution is still in its infancy. The extreme figures of 
the Terror are still in command in Russia. The whole 
of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution. There is 
a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and 
revolt among the workmen against pre-war conditions. The 
whole existing order, in its political, social and economic 
aspects is questioned by the masses of the population from 
one end of Europe to the other. In some countries, like 
Germany and Russia, the unrest takes the form of open 
rebellion, in others, like France, Great Britain and Italy, 
it takes the shape of strikes and of general disinclina- 
tion to settle down to work, symptoms which are just as 
much concerned with the desire for political and social 
change as with wage demands. 

Much of this unrest is healthy. "We shall never make 
a lasting peace by attempting to restore the conditions of 
1914. But there is a danger that we may throw the masses 
of the population throughout Europe into the arms of the 
extremists, whose only idea for regenerating mankind is to 
destroy utterly the whole existing fabric of society. These 
men have triumphed in Russia. They have done so at a 
terrible price. Hundreds and thousands of the population 
have perished. The railways, the roads, the towns, the 
whole structural organization of Russia has been almost 
destroyed, but somehow or other they seem to have managed 
to keep their hold upon the masses of the Russian people, 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 95 

and what is much more significant, they have succeeded in 
creating a large army which is apparently well directed 
and well disciplined, and is, as to a great part of it, pre- 
pared to die for its ideals. In another year Russia, in- 
spired by a new enthusiasm, may have recovered from her 
passion for peace and have at her command the only army 
eager to fight, because it is the only army that believes 
that it has any cause to fight for. 

The greatest danger that I see in the present situation 
is that Germany may throw in her lot with Bolshevism and 
place her resources, her brains, her vast organizing power 
at the disposal of the revolutionary fanatics whose dream 
it is to conquer the world for Bolshevism by force of arms. 
This danger is no mere chimera. The present government 
in Germany is weak ; its authority is challenged ; it lingers 
merely because there is no alternative but the Spartacists, 
and Germany is not ready for Spartacism, as yet. But the 
argument which the Spartacists are using with great ef- 
fect at this very time is that they alone can save Germany 
from the intolerable conditions which have been bequeathed 
her by the war. They offer to free the German people from 
indebtedness to the Allies and indebtedness to their own 
richer classes. They offer them complete control of their: 
own affairs and the prospect of a new heaven and earth. 
It is true that the price will be heavy. There will be two 
or three years of anarchy, perhaps of bloodshed, but at 
the end the land will remain, the people will remain, the 
greater part of the houses and the factories will remain, 
and the railways and the roads will remain, and Germany, 
having thrown off her burdens, will be able to make a fresh 
start. 

If Germany goes over to the Spartacists it is inevitable 
that she would throw in her lot with the Russian Bol- 



96 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

shevists. Once that happens all Eastern Europe will be 
swept into the orbit of the Bolshevik revolution, and within 
a year we may witness the spectacle of nearly three hun- 
dred million people organized into a vast red army under 
German instructors and German generals, equipped with 
German cannon and German machine guns and prepared 
for a renewal of the attack on Western Europe. This is a 
prospect which no one can face with equanimity. Yet the 
news which came from Hungary yesterday shows only too 
clearly that this danger is no fantasy. And what are the 
reasons alleged for this decision? They are mainly the 
belief that large numbers of Magyars are to be handed 
over to the control of others. If we are wise, we shall offer 
to Germany a peace, which, while just, will be preferable 
for all sensible men to the alternative of Bolshevism. I 
would therefore put it in the forefront of the peace that 
once she accepts our terms, especially reparation, we will 
open to her the raw materials and markets of the world on 
equal terms with ourselves, and will do everything possible 
to enable the German people to get upon their legs again. 
We can not both cripple her and expect her to pay. 

Finally, we must offer terms which a responsible gov- 
ernment in Germany can expect to be able to carry out. 
If we present terms to Germany which are unjust, or ex- 
cessively onerous, no responsible government will sign 
them; certainly the present weak administration will not. 
If it did, I am told that it would be swept away within 
twenty-four hours. Yet if we can find nobody in Germany 
who will put his- hand to a peace treaty, what will be the 
position? A large army of occupation for an indefinite 
period is out of the question. Germany would not mind 
it. A very large number of people in that country would 
welcome it, as it would be the only hope of preserving 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 97 

the existing order of things. The objection would not 
come from Germany, but from our own countries. Neither 
the British Empire nor America would agree to occupy 
Germany. France by itself could not bear the burden of 
occupation. We should therefore be driven back on the 
policy of blockading the country. That would inevitably 
mean Spartacism from the Urals to the Rhine, with its 
inevitable consequence of a huge red army attempting to 
cross the Rhine. As a matter of fact, I am doubtful 
whether public opinion would allow us deliberately to 
starve Germany. If the only difference between Germany 
and ourselves were between onerous terms and moderate 
terms, I very much doubt if public opinion would tolerate 
the deliberate condemnation of millions of women and chil- 
dren to death by starvation. If so, the Allies would have 
incurred the moral defeat of having attempted to impose 
terms on Germany which Germany had successfully re- 
sisted. 

From every point of view, therefore, it seems to me 
that we ought to endeavor to draw up a peace settlement 
as if we were impartial arbiters, forgetful of the passions 
of the war. This settlement ought to have the three ends 
in view. 

First of all it must do justice to the Allies, by taking 
into account Germany's responsibility for the origin of 
the war, and for the way in which it was fought. 

Secondly, it must be a settlement which a responsible 
German Government can sign in the belief that it can 
fulfil the obligations it incurs. 

Thirdly, it must be a settlement which will contain in 
itself no provocations for future wars, and which will con- 
stitute an alternative to Bolshevism, because it will com- 
mend itself to all reasonable opinion as a fair settlement of 
the European problem. 



98 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

II 

It is not, however, enough to draw up a just and far- 
sighted peace with Germany. If we are to offer Europe 
an alternative to Bolshevism we must make the League 
of Nations into something which will be both a safeguard 
to those nations who are prepared for fair dealing with 
their neighbors and a menace to those who would trespass 
on the rights of their neighbors, whether they are imperial- 
ist empires or imperialist Bolshevists. An essential ele- 
ment, therefore, in the peace settlement is the constitution 
of the League of Nations as the effective guardian of inter- 
national liberty throughout the world. If this is to happen 
the first thing to do is that the leading members of the 
League of Nations should arrive at an understanding be- 
tween themselves in regard to armaments. To my mind it 
is idle to endeavor to impose a permanent limitation of 
armaments upon Germany unless we are prepared similarly 
to impose a limitation upon ourselves. I recognize that 
until Germany has settled down and given practical proof 
that she has abandoned her imperialist ambitions, and 
until Russia has also given proof that she does not intend 
to embark upon a military crusade against her neighbors, 
it is essential that the leading members of the League of 
Nations should maintain considerable forces both by land 
and sea in order to preserve liberty in the world. But 
if they are to present a united front to the forces both of 
reaction and revolution, they must arrive at such an agree- 
ment in regard to armaments among themselves as would 
make it impossible for suspicion to arise between the mem- 
bers of the League of Nations in regard to their intentions 
toward one another. If the League is to do its work for the 
world it will only be because the members of the League 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 99 

trust it themselves and because there are no rivalries and 
jealousies in the matter of armaments between them. The 
first condition of success for the League of Nations is, 
therefore, a firm understanding between the British Em- 
pire and the United States of America and France and 
Italy, that there will be no competitive building up of 
fleets or armies between them. Unless this is arrived at 
before the Covenant is signed the League of Nations will be 
a sham and a mockery. It will be regarded, and rightly 
regarded, as a proof that its principal promoters and 
patrons repose no confidence in its efficacy. But once the 
leading members of the League have made it clear that they 
have reached an understanding which will both secure to 
the League of Nations the strength which is necessary to 
enable it to protect its members and which at the same 
time will make misunderstanding and suspicion with regard 
to competitive armaments impossible between them its fu- 
ture and its authority will be assured. It will then be 
able to insure as an essential condition of peace that not 
only Germany, but all the smaller states of Europe, under- 
take to limit their armaments and abolish conscription. 
If the small nations are permitted to organize and main- 
tain conscript armies running each to hundreds of thou- 
sands, boundary wars will be inevitable, and all Europe 
will be drawn in. Unless we secure this universal limita- 
tion we shall achieve neither lasting peace nor the perma- 
nent observance of the limitation of German armaments 
which we now seek to impose. 

I should like to ask why Germany, if she accepts the 
terms we consider just and fair, should not be admitted to 
the League of Nations, at any rate as soon as she has 
established a stable and democratic government? AVould 
it not be an inducement to her both to sign the terms and 



100 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

to resist Bolshevism ? Might it not be safer that she should 
be inside the League than that she should be outside it? 
Finally, I believe that until the authority and effective- 
ness of the League of Nations has been demonstrated, the 
British Empire and the United States ought to give France 
a guarantee against the possibility of a new German ag- 
gression. France has special reason for asking for such 
a guarantee. She has twice been attacked and twice in- 
vaded by Germany in half a century. She has been so 
attacked because she has been the principal guardian of 
liberal and democratic civilization against Central Euro- 
pean autocracy on the continent of Europe. It is right that 
the other great Western democracies should enter into an 
undertaking which will insure that they stand by her 
side in time to protect her against invasion should Ger- 
many ever threaten her again, or until the League of 
Nations has proved its capacity to preserve the peace and 
liberty of the world. 

Ill 

If, however, the Peace Conference is really to secure 
peace and prove to the world a complete plan of settle- 
ment which all reasonable men will recognize as an alter- 
native preferable to anarchy, it must deal with the Russian 
situation. Bolshevik imperialism does not merely menace 
the states on Russia's borders. It threatens the whole of 
Asia, and is as near to America as it is to France. It is 
idle to think that the Peace Conference can separate, how- 
ever sound a peace it may have arranged with Germany, if 
it leaves Russia as it is to-day. I do not propose, however, 
to complicate the question of the peace with Germany by 
introducing a discussion of the Russian problem. I men- 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 101 

tion it simply in order to remind ourselves of the impor- 
tance of dealing with it as soon as possible. 

The memorandum is followed by some proposals 
entitled ''General Lines of the Peace Conditions," 
which would tend to make the peace less severe. It 
is hardly worth while reproducing them. As in 
many points the decisions taken were in the opposite 
sense it is better not to go beyond the general con- 
siderations. 

Mr. Lloyd George 's memorandum is a secret docu- 
ment, but as the English and American Press have 
already printed long passages from it, it is prac- 
tically possible to give it in its entirety without 
adding anything to what has already been printed. 

M. Tardieu has published M. Clemenceau's reply, 
drawn up by M. Tardieu himself and representing 
the French point of view: 



The French Government is in complete accord with the 
general aim of Mr. Lloyd George's note to make a lasting 
peace and for that reason a just peace. 

It does not believe, on the other hand, that this principle, 
which is its own, really leads to the conclusions deduced 
from it in this note. 

II 

This note suggests granting moderate territorial condi- 
tions to Germany in Europe in order not to leave her after 
the peace with feelings of deep resentment. 



102 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

This method would be of value if the last war had merely 
been for Germany an European war, but this is not the 
case. 

Germany before the war was a great world power whose 
"future was on the water." It was in this world power 
that she took pride. It is this world power that she will 
not console herself for having lost. 

Now we have taken away from her — or we are going to 
take away from her — without being deterred by the fear 
of her resentment — all her colonies, all her navy, a great 
part of her merchant marine (on account of Reparations), 
her foreign markets in which she was supreme. 

Thus we are dealing her the blow which she will feel the 
worst and it is hoped to soften it by some improvement in 
territorial terms. This is a pure illusion, the remedy is not 
adequate to the ill. 

If for reasons of general policy, it is desired to give cer- 
tain satisfactions to Germany, it is not in Europe that they 
must be sought. This kind of appeasement will be in vain 
so long as Germany is cut off from world politics. 

In order to appease Germany (if such is the desire) we 
must offer her colonial satisfactions, naval satisfactions, 
satisfactions of commercial expansion. But the note of 
March 26 merely contemplates giving her European terri- 
torial satisfactions. 

Ill 

Mr. Lloyd George's note fears that if the territorial con- 
ditions imposed on Germany are too severe, it will give 
an impetus to Bolshevism. Is it not to be feared that this 
would be precisely the result of the action suggested ? 

The Conference has decided to call to life a certain 
number of new states. Can it without committing an injus- 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 103 

tice sacrifice them out of regard for Germany by imposing 
upon them inacceptable frontiers? If these peoples — 
notably Poland and Bohemian — have so far resisted Bol- 
shevism, they have done so by the development of national 
spirit. If we do violence to this sentiment, they will be- 
come the prey of Bolshevism and the only barrier now ex- 
isting will be broken down. 

The result will be either a Confederation of Central and 
Eastern Europe under the leadership of Bolshevist Ger- 
many or the enslavement of this same vast territory by Ger- 
many swung back to reaction after a period of general 
anarchy. In either case, the Allies will have lost the war. 

The policy of the French Government is on the contrary 
to give strong support to these young nations with the help 
of all that is liberal in Europe and not to seek at their 
expense to attenuate — which besides would be useless — the 
colonial, naval and commercial disaster which the peace 
inflicts on Germany. 

If in order to give to these young nations frontiers 
which are essential to their national life, it is necessary to 
transfer to their sovereignty Germans, the sons of those 
who enslaved them, one may regret having to do this and 
do it only with measure, but it can not be avoided. 

Moreover, by depriving Germany totally and definitely 
of her colonies because she has ill-treated the natives, one 
forfeits the right to refuse to Poland or to Bohemia their 
natural frontiers on the ground that Germans have oc- 
cupied their territory as the forerunners of Pan-German- 
ism. 

ly 

The note of March 26 insists — and the French Govern- 
ment is in complete agreement — on the necessity of making 



104 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

a peace that will appear to Germany to be a just peace. 
But it may be remarked that taking German mentality 
into consideration, it is not sure that the Germans will have 
the same idea of what is just as the Allies have. 

Finally it must be retained that this impression of jus- 
tice must be felt not only by the enemy but also, and first 
of all, by the Allies. The Allies who have fought together 
must conclude a peace which will be fair to all of them. 

But what would be the result of following the method 
suggested in the note of March 26 ? 

A certain number of full and final guarantees would be 
insured to the maritime nations which have never been 
invaded. 

Full and final cession of the German colonies. 

Full and final surrender of the German Navy. 

Full and final surrender of a large part of the German 
merchant marine. 

Full and lasting, if not final, exclusion of Germany 
from foreign markets. 

To the Continental nations, however, that is to say to 
those who have suffered the most from the war, only 
partial and deferred solutions are offered. 

Partial solutions such as the reduced frontier suggested 
for Poland and Bohemia. 

Deferred solutions such as the defensive undertaking 
offered to France for the protection of her territory. 

Deferred solutions such as the proposed arrangement for 
the Saar coal. 

There is here an inequality which may well have a disas- 
trous influence on the after- war relations between the 
Allies, which are more important than the after-war rela- 
tions between Germany and the Allies. 

It has been shown in Paragraph I that it would be an 



TEEATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 105 

illusion to hope to find in territorial satisfactions given 
to Germany a sufficient compensation for the world-wide 
disaster she has sustained. May it be permitted to add that 
it would be an injustice to make the weight of these com- 
pensations fall upon those of the Allied nations which 
have borne the brunt of the war. 

These countries can not bear the cost of the peace after 
having borne the cost of the war. It is essential that they 
too shall have the feeling that the peace is just and equal 
for all. 

Failing this, it is not only Central Europe in which 
Bolshevism may be feared, for as events have shown, no 
atmosphere is more favorable to Bolshevism than that of 
national disappointment. 



The French Government desires to confine itself for the 
time being to these considerations of general policy. 

It pays full homage to the intentions which inspire Mr. 
Lloyd George's note, but it believes that the considerations 
which the present note deduces from it are in accord with 
justice and the general interest. 

It is by these considerations that the French Government 
will be guided in the coming exchange of views during 
the discussion of the terms suggested by the prime minister 
of Great Britain. 

These two documents are of more than usual 
interest. 

The British prime minister, with his remarkable 
insight, at once notes the seriousness of the situa- 
tion. He sees the danger to the peace of the world 



106 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

in German depression. Germany oppressed does 
not mean Germany subjected. Every year France 
will become numerically weaker, Germany stronger. 
The horrors of war will be forgotten and the main- 
tenance of peace will depend on the creation of a 
situation which makes life possible, does not cause 
exasperation to come into public feeling or into the 
just claims of Germans desirous of independence. 
Injustice in the hour of triumph will never be par- 
doned, can never be atoned. 

So the idea of handing over to other states large 
groups of German nationality is not only an injus- 
tice, but a cause of future wars, and what can be said 
of Germans is also true of Magyars. No cause of 
future wars must be allowed to remain. Putting 
millions of Germans under Polish rule — ^that is, un- 
der an inferior people which has never shown any 
capacity for stable self-government — must lead to 
a new war sooner or later. If Germany in exaspera- 
tion became a country of revolution, what would 
happen to Europe? You can impose severe condi- 
tions, but that does not mean that you can enforce 
them; the conditions to be imposed must be such 
that a responsible German Government can in good 
faith assume the obligation of carrying them out. 

Neither Great Britain nor the United States of 
America can assume the obligation of occupying 
Germany if it does not carry out the excessively 
severe conditions which it is desired to impose. Can 
France occupy Germany alone? 

From that moment Lloyd George saw the neces- 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 107 

sity of admitting Germany into the League of Na- 
tions at once, and proposed a scheme of treaty con- 
taining conditions which, while very severe, were in 
part tolerable for the German people. 

Clemenceau's reply, issued a few days later, con- 
tains the French point of view, and has an ironical 
note when it touches on the weak points in Lloyd 
George 's argument. The war, says the French note, 
was not a European war; Germany's eyes were 
fixed on world power, and she saw that her future 
was on the sea. There is no necessity to show con- 
sideration regarding territorial conditions in Eu- 
rope. By taking away her commercial fleet, her col- 
onies and her foreign markets more harm is done to 
Germany than by taking European territory. To 
pacify her (if there is any occasion for doing so) 
she must be offered commercial satisfaction. At 
this point the note, in considering questions of jus- 
tice and of mere utility, becomes distinctly ironical. 

Having decided to bring to life new states, espec- 
ially Poland and Czecho-Slovakia, why not give 
them safe frontiers even if some Germans or Mag- 
yars have to be sacrificed? 

One of Clemenceau's fixed ideas is that criterions 
of justice must not be applied to Germans. The 
note says explicitly that, given the German mental- 
ity, it is by no means sure that the conception of 
justice of Germany will be the same as that of the 
Allies. 

On another occasion, after the signing of the 
treaty, when Lloyd George pointed out the wisdom 



108 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

of not claiming from Germany the absurdity of 
handing over thousands of officers accused of 
cruelty for judgment by their late enemies, and 
recognized frankly the impossibility of carrying out 
such a stipulation in England and in Italy, Clem- 
enceau replied simply that the Germans are not like 
the English. 

The neatest point in Clemenceau's note is the con- 
tradiction in which he tries to involve the British 
prime minister between the clauses of the treaty 
concerning Germany outside Europe, in which no 
moderation had been shown, and those regarding 
Germany in Europe, in which he himself did not 
consider moderation either necessary or opportune. 

There was an evident divergence of views, clear- 
ing the way for a calm review of the conditions to 
be imposed, and here two countries could have ex- 
ercised decisive action : the United States and Italy. 

But the United States was represented by Wilson, 
who was already in a difficult situation. By suc- 
cessive concessions, the gravity of which he had not 
realized, he found himself confronted by drafts of 
treaties which in the end were contradictions of all 
his proposals, the absolute antithesis of the pledges 
he had given. It is quite possible that he had not 
seen where he was going, but his frequent irrita- 
tion was the sign of his distress. Still, in the ship- 
wreck of his whole program, he had succeeded in 
saving one thing, the covenant of the League of 
Nations which was to be prefaced to all the treaties. 
He wanted to go back to America and meet the 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 109 

Senate with at least something to show as a record 
of the great undertaking, and he hoped and believed 
in good faith that the pact of the League of Nations 
would sooner or later have brought about agreement 
and modified the worst of the mistakes made. His 
conception of things was academic, and he had not 
realized that there was need to constitute the nations 
before laying down rules for the League ; he trusted 
that bringing them together with mutual pledges 
would further most efficiently the cause of peace 
among the peoples. On the other hand, there was 
a mutual diffidence between Wilson and Lloyd 
George, and there was little likelihood that a move 
by the British prime minister would have checked 
the course the Conference had taken. 

Italy might have done a great work if its repre- 
sentatives had had a clear policy. But, as M. Tar- 
dieu says, they had no share in the effective doings 
of the Conference, and their activity was almost 
entirely absorbed in the question of Fiume. The 
Conference was a three-sided conversation between 
Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George, and the 
latter had hostility and diffidence on each side of 
him, with Italy — as earlier stated — for the most part 
absent. Also, it was just then that the divergence 
between Wilson and the Italian representatives 
reached its acute stage. The essential parts of the 
treaty were decided in April and the beginning of 
May, on April 22 the question of the right bank of 
the Rhine, on the 23rd or 24th the agreement about 
reparations. Italy was absent, and when the Italian 



110 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

delegates returned to Paris without being asked on 
May 6, the text of the treaty was complete, in print. 
In actual fact, only one person did really effective 
work and directed the trend of the Conference, and 
that person was Clemenceau. 

The fact that the Conference met in Paris, that 
everything that was done by the various delegations 
was kno^vn, even foreseen so that it could be op- 
posed, discredited, even destroyed by the Press be- 
forehand — a thing which annoyed Lloyd George so 
much that at one time he thought seriously of leav- 
ing the Conference — all this gave an enormous ad- 
vantage to the French delegation and especially to 
Clemenceau who directed the Conference's work. 

All his life Clemenceau has been a tremendous 
destroyer. For years and years he has done nothing 
but overthrow governments with a sort of obstinate 
ferocity. He was an old man when he was called 
to lead the country, but he brought with him all his 
fighting spirit. No one detests the Church and 
detests Socialism more than he ; both of these moral 
forces are equally repulsive to his individualistic 
spirit. I do not think there is any man among the 
politicians I have known who is more individualistic 
than Clemenceau, who remains to-day the man of 
the old democracy. In time of war no one was better 
fitted than he to lead a fighting ministry, fighting at 
home, fighting abroad, with the same feeling, the 
same passion. When there was one thing only 
necessary in order to beat the enemy, never to falter 
in hatred, never to doubt the sureness of victory, no 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 111 

one was comparable to him, no one could be more 
determined, no one more bitter. But when war was 
over, when it was peace that had to be insured, no 
one could be less fitted for the work. He saw noth- 
ing beyond his hatred for Germany, the necessity 
for destroying the enemy, sweeping away every bit 
of his activity, bringing him into subjection. On 
account of his age he could not visualize the prob- 
lems of the future ; he could only see one thing neces- 
sary, and that was immediate, to destroy the enemy 
and either destroy or confiscate all his means of 
development. He was not nationalist or imperialist 
like his collaborators, but before all and above all 
one idea lived in him, hatred for Germany. To 
render her barren, to deprive her of her supports, to 
destroy her — this was the consummation of the war 
which was proposed in the treaty of peace, and he 
and the financiers who surrounded him were the 
true artificers of the Treaty of Versailles and of the 
policy which is still in force. 

He had said in the French Parliament that treaties 
of peace were nothing more than a way of continuing 
war, and in September, 1920, in his preface to M. 
Tardieu's book, he said that France must get repara- 
tion for Waterloo and Sedan. Even for Waterloo : 
** Waterloo and Sedan, to go back no further, forced 
upon us the grievous preoccupations of a policy of 
reparation. ' ' 

Tardieu noted, as we have seen, that there were 
only three people in the Conference: Wilson, Cle- 
menceau and Lloyd George. Orlando, he remarks, 



112 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

spoke little, and Italy had no importance. With 
subtle irony he notes that Wilson talked like a uni- 
versity don criticizing an essay with the didactic 
logic of the professor. The truth is that after hav- 
ing made the mistake of staying in the Conference 
he did not see that his whole edifice was tumbling 
down, and he let mistakes accumulate one after the 
other, with the result that treaties were framed 
which, as already pointed out, actually destroyed all 
the principles he had declared to the world. 

Things being as they were in Paris, Clemenceau's 
temperament, the pressure of French industry and 
of the newspapers, the real anxiety to make the fu- 
ture safe, and the desire on that account to anni- 
hilate Germany, France naturally demanded, 
through its representatives, the severest sanctions. 
England, given the realistic nature of its representa- 
tives and the calm clear vision of Lloyd George, 
always favored in general the more moderate solu- 
tions as those which were more likely to be carried 
out and would least disturb the equilibrium of 
Europe. So it came about that the decisions seemed 
to be a compromise, but were, on the other hand, 
actually so hard and so stern that they were impos- 
sible of execution. 

Without committing any indiscretion it is possi- 
ble to see now from the publications of the French 
representatives at the Conference themselves what 
France's claims were. 

Let us try to sum them up. 

As regards disarmament and control there could 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 113 

have been and there ought to have been no difficulty 
about agreement. I am in favor of the reduction of 
all armaments, but I regard it as a perfectly legiti- 
mate claim that the country principally responsible 
for the war, and in general the conquered countries, 
should be obliged to disarm. 

No one would regard it as unfair that Germany 
and the conquered countries should be compelled to 
reduce their armaments to the measure necessary to 
guarantee internal order only. 

But a distinction must be drawn between military 
sanctions meant to guarantee peace and those 
destined to ruin the enemy. In actual truth, in his 
solemn pronouncements after the entry of the 
United States into the war, President "Wilson had 
never spoken of a separate disarmament of the con- 
quered countries, but of adequate guarantees given 
and received that national armaments should be 
reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic 
safety. Assurances given and received: that is to 
say, an identical situation as between conquerors 
and conquered. 

No one can deny the right of the conqueror to 
compel the conquered enemy to give up his arms and 
reduce his military armaments, at any rate for some 
time. But on this point too there was useless excess. 

I should never have thought of publishing 
France's claims. Bitterness comes that way, re- 
sponsibility is incurred, in future it may be an argu- 
ment in your adversary's hands. But M. Tardieu 
has taken this office on himself and has told us all 



114 THE WEECK OF EUEOPE 

France did, recounting her claims from the acts of 
the Conference itself. Reference is easy to the 
story written by one of the representatives of 
France, possibly the most efficient through having 
been in America a long time and having fuller and 
more intimate knowledge of the American represen- 
tatives, particularly Colonel House. 

Generally speaking, in every claim the French 
representatives started from an extreme position, 
and that was not only a state of mind, it was a 
tactical measure. Later on, if they gave any part of 
their claim, they had the air of yielding, of accepting 
a compromise. "When their claims were of such an 
extreme nature that the anxiety they caused, the 
opposition they raised, was evident, Clemenceau put 
on an air of moderation and gave way at once. 
Sometimes, too, he showed moderation himself, when 
it suited his purpose, but in reality he only gave way 
when he saw that it was impossible to get what he 
wanted. 

In points where English and American interests 
were not involved, given the difficult position in 
which Lloyd George was placed and Wilson's utter 
ignorance of all European questions, mth Italy 
keeping almost entirely apart, the French point of 
view always came out on top, if slightly modified. 
But the original claim was always so extreme that 
the modification left standing the most radically 
severe measure against the conquered countries. 

Many decisions affecting France were not suffi- 
ciently criticized. The position of the English and 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 115 

the Americans toward France was such that every 
objection of theirs was bound to appear as an act 
of ill will, a pleading of the enemy's cause. 

Previously, in nearly every case when peace was 
being made, the representatives of the conquered 
countries had been called to state their case, oppor- 
tunity was given for discussion. The Russo-Japan- 
ese peace is an example. Undoubtedly the aggression 
of Russia had been unscrupulous and premeditated, 
but both parties participated in drawing up the 
peace treaty. At Paris, possibly for the first time 
in history, the destiny of the most cultured people 
in Europe was decided — or rather it was thought 
that it was being decided — without even listening to 
what they had to say and without hearing from their 
representatives if the conditions imposed could or 
could not possibly be carried out. Later on an ex- 
ception, if only a purely formal one, was made in 
the case of Hungary, whose delegates were heard; 
but it will remain forever a terrible precedent in 
modern history that, against all pledges, all prece- 
dents and all traditions, the representatives of Ger- 
many were never even heard; nothing was left to 
them but to sign a treaty at a moment when famine 
and exhaustion and threat of revolution made it im- 
possible not to sign it. 

If Germany had not signed she would have suf- 
fered less loss. But at that time conditions at home 
with latent revolution threatening the whole em- 
pire, made it imperative to accept any solution, and 
all the more as the Germans considered that they 



116 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

were not bound by tbeir signature, the decisions hav- 
ing been imposed by violence without any hearing 
being given to the conquered party, and the most 
serious decisions being taken without any real exam- 
ination of the facts. In the old canon law of the 
Church it was laid down that every one must have a 
hearing, even the devil: Etiam diabulus audiatur 
(Even the devil has the right to be heard). But the 
new democracy, which proposed to install the society 
of the nations, did not even obey the precepts which 
the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the 
accused. 

Conditions in Germany were terribly difficult, and 
an army of two hundred thousand men was con- 
sidered by the military experts the minimum neces- 
sary. The military commission presided over by 
Marshal Foch left Germany an army of two hundred 
thousand men, recruited by conscription, a staff in 
proportion, service of one year, fifteen divisions, 180 
heavy guns, 600 field-guns. That is less than what 
little states without any resources have now, three 
years after the close of the war. But France at 
once imposed the reduction of the German Army to 
100,000 men, of whom 4,000 were to be officers, no 
conscription but a twelve years ' service of paid sol- 
diers, artillery reduced practically to nothing, no 
heavy guns at all, very few field-guns. No oppor- 
tunity was given for discussion, nor was there any. 
Clemenceau put the problem in such a way that dis- 
cussion was out of the question: **It is France who 
to-morrow as yesterday will be face to face with 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 117 

Germany." Lloyd George and Colonel House con- 
fined themselves to saying that if on this point 
France formally expressed her views, Great Britain 
and the United States had no right to oppose them. 
Lloyd George was convinced that the measures were 
too extreme and had tried on May 23, 1919, to modify 
them ; but France insisted on imposing on Germany 
this situation of tremendous difficulty. 

I have referred to the military conditions imposed 
on Germany: destruction of all war material, fort- 
resses and armament factories; prohibition of any 
trade in arms; destruction of the fleet; occupation 
of the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads 
for fifteen years ; Allied control, with wide powers, 
over the execution of the military and naval clauses 
of the treaty, with consequent subjection of all public 
administrations and private companies to the will of 
a foreigner, or rather of an enemy kept at the ex- 
pense of Germany itself and at no small expense, 
etc. In some of the inter-allied conferences I have 
had to take note of what these commissions of con- 
trol really are, and their absurd extravagance, based 
on the argument that the enemy must pay for every- 
thing. 

The purport of France 's action in the Conference 
was not to insure safe military guarantees against 
Germany but to destroy her, at any rate to cut her 
up. And indeed, when France had got all she wanted 
and Germany was helpless, she continued the same 
policy, even intensifying it. Every bit of territory 
possible must be taken, German unity must be brok- 



118 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

en, and not only military but industrial Germany 
must be laid low under a series of controls and an 
impossible number of obligations. 

All know how, in Article 428 of the treaty, it is 
laid dowai, as a guarantee of the execution of the 
treaty terms on the part of Germany, or rather as 
a more extended military guarantee for France, that 
German territory on the west bank of the Rhine and 
the bridgeheads are to be occupied by Allied and 
Associated troops for fifteen years, methods and 
regulations for such occupation following in Articles 
429 and 432. 

This occupation not only gives deep offense to 
Germany (France has always looked back with great 
bitterness on the few months' military occupation by 
her Prussian conquerors in the War of 1870), but it 
paralyzes all her activity and is generally judged to 
be completely useless. 

All the Allies were ready to give France every 
military guarantee against any unjust aggression 
by Germany, but France wanted in addition the oc- 
cupation of the left bank of the Rhine. It was a 
very delicate matter, and the notes presented to the 
Conference by Great Britain on March 26 and April 
2, by the United States on March 28 and April 12, 
show how embarrassed the two governments were 
in considering a question that France regarded as 
essential for her future. It has to be added that 
the action of Marshal Foch in this matter was not 
entirely constitutional. He claimed that, independ- 
ently of nationality, France and Belgium have the 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 119 

right to look on the Rhine as the indispensable fron- 
tier for the nations of the west of Europe, et par Id, 
de la civilisation. Neither Lloyd George nor Wilson 
could swallow the argument of the Rhine as a fron- 
tier between the civilization of France and Belgium 
— all civilization, indeed — and Germany. 

In the treaty the occupation of the left bank of 
the Rhine and the bridgeheads by the Allied and 
Associated Powers for fifteen years was introduced 
as a compromise. Such districts will be evacuated 
by degrees every five years if Germany shall have 
faithfully carried out the terms of the treaty. Now 
the conditions of the treaty are in large measure 
impossible of execution, and in consequence no exe- 
cution of them can ever be described as faithful. 
Further, the occupying troops are paid by Germany. 
It follows that the conception of the occupation of 
the left bank of the Rhine was of a fact of unlimited 
duration. The harm that would result from the 
occupation was pointed out at the Conference by 
the American representatives and even more 
etrongly by the English. What was the use of it, 
they asked, if the German Army were reduced to 
100,000 men? M. Tardieu himself tells the story of 
all the efforts made, especially by Lloyd George and 
Bonar Law, to prevent the blunder which later on 
was endorsed in the treaty as Article 428. Lloyd 
George went so far as to complain of political 
intrigues for creating disorder on the Rhine. But 
Clemenceau took care to put the question in such a 
form that no discussion was possible. In the matter 



120 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

of the occupation, he said to the English, you do not 
understand the French point of view. You live in 
an island with the sea as defense, we on the con- 
tinent with a bad frontier. We do not look for an 
attack by Germany but for systematic refusal to 
carry out the terms of the treaty. Never was there 
a treaty with so many clauses, with, consequently, 
so many risks of evasion. Against that risk the ma- 
terial guarantee of occupation is necessary. There 
are two methods in direct contrast: **In England it 
is believed that the way to succeed is by making 
concessions. In France we believe that it is by tak- 
ing decisive action." 

On March 14 Lloyd George and Wilson had of- 
fered France the fullest military guarantee in place 
of the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. 
France wanted, and in fact got, the occupation as 
well as the alliances. **Our object T' says Tardieu. 
*'To make sure of the proffered guarantee but with 
the addition of occupation." Outside the Versailles 
Treaty the United States and Great Britain had 
made several treaties of alliance "svith France for the 
event of unprovoked aggression by Germany. Later 
on the French-English Treaty was approved by the 
House of Commons, the French-American under- 
went the same fate as the Versailles Treaty. But 
the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on 
account of the provision that it should come into 
force simultaneously with the American Treaty. 

In a Paris newspaper Poincare published in Sep- 
tember, 1921, some strictly private documents on 



TREATIES— ORIGINS AND AIMS 121 

the questions of the military guarantees and the 
occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. He wished 
to get the credit of having stood firm when Clemen- 
ceau himself hesitated at the demand for an occupa- 
tion of the left bank of the Rhine for even a longer 
period than fifteen years. He has published the 
letter he sent to Clemenceau to be shown to Wilson 
and Lloyd George and the latter 's reply. 

He said that there must be no thought of giving 
up the occupation and renouncing a guarantee until 
every obligation in the treaty should have been car- 
ried out ; he went so far as to claim that in occupa- 
tion regarded as a guarantee of a credit representing 
an indemnity for damages, there is nothing contrary 
to the principles proclaimed by President Wilson 
and recognized by the Allies. Nor would it suffice 
even to have the faculty of reoccupation, because 
''this faculty" could never be a valid substitute for 
occupation. As regards the suggestion that a long 
occupation or one for an indeterminate period would 
cause bad feeling, M. Pioncare was convinced that 
this was an exaggeration. A short occupation 
causes more irritation on account of its arbitrary 
limit; every one understands an occupation without 
other limit than the complete carrying out of the 
treaty. The longer the time that passes the better 
would become the relations between the German 
populations and the armies of occupation. 

Clemenceau communicated Pioncare 's letter to 
Lloyd George. The British prime minister replied 
on May 6 in the clearest terms. In his eyes, forcing 



122 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Germany to submit to the occupation of the Rhine 
and the Rhine Provinces for an unlimited period, 
was a provocation to renew the war in Europe. 

During the Conference, France put forward some 
proposals, the aim of which was nothing less than 
to split up Germany. A typical example is the 
memorandum presented by the French delegation 
claiming the annexation of the Saar territory. This 
is completely German; in the six hundred and fifty 
thousand inhabitants before the war there were not 
a hundred French. Not a word had ever been said 
about annexation of the Saar either in government 
pronouncements or in any vote in the French Par- 
liament, nor had it been discussed by any political 
party. No one had ever suggested such annexation, 
which certainly was a far more serious thing than 
the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, as 
there was considerable German population in 
Alsace-Lorraine. There was no French population 
at all in the Saar, and the territory in question could 
not even be claimed for military reasons but only 
for its economic resources. Reasons of history 
could not count, for they were all in Germany's 
favor. Nevertheless the request was put forward 
as a matter of sentiment. Had not the Saar be- 
longed in other days entirely or in part to France? 
Politics and economics are not everything, said 
Clemenceau; history also has great value. For the 
United States a hundred and twenty years are a 
long time; for France they count little. Material 
reparations are not enough, there must be moral 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 123 

reparations too, and the conception of France can 
not be the same as that of her Allies. The desire for 
the Saar corresponded, according to Clemenceau, to 
a need of moral reparation. 

On this point, too, the extreme French claim was 
modified. The Saar mines were given to France, not 
provisionally as a matter of reparations, but per- 
manently with full right of possession and full 
guarantees for their working. For fifteen years 
from the date of the treaty the government of the 
territory was put in the hands of the League of 
Nations as trustee; after fifteen years the popula- 
tion, entirely German, should be called to decide 
under what government they desired to live. In 
other words, in a purely German country, which no 
one in France had ever claimed, of which no one in 
France had ever spoken during the war, the most 
important property was handed to a conquering 
state, the country was put under the administration 
of the conquerors (which is what the League of Na- 
tions actually is at present), and after fifteen years 
of torment the population is to be put through a 
plebiscite. Meanwhile the French custom regula- 
tions rule in the Saar and the national sentiment of 
its inhabitants is subjected to every form of absurd 
and iniquitous offense. 

It was open to the treaty to adopt or not to adopt 
the system of plebiscites. When it was a case of 
handing over great masses of German populations, 
a plebiscite was imperative — at any rate, where any 
doubt existed, and the more so in concessions which 



124 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

formed no part of the war aims and were not found 
in any pronouncement of the Allies. On the other 
hand, in all cessions of German territory to Poland 
and Bohemia, no mention is made of a plebiscite 
because it was a question of military necessity or of 
lands which had been historically victims of Ger- 
many. But only for Schleswig, Upper Silesia, 
Marienwerder, Allenstein, Klagenfurth and the Saar 
were plebiscites laid dovm — and with the exception 
that the plebiscite itself, when, as in the case of Up- 
per Silesia, it resulted in favor of Germany, was 
not regarded as conclusive. 

But where the most extreme views clashed was in 
the matter of reparations and the indemnity to be 
claimed from the enemy. 

We have already seen that the theory of repara- 
tion for damage found its way incidentally, even 
before the treaty was considered, into the armistice 
terms. No word had been said previously of claim- 
ing from the conquered enemy anything beyond 
restoration of devastated territories, but after the 
war another theory was produced. If Germany and 
her allies are solely responsible for the war, they 
must pay the whole cost of the war : damage to prop- 
erty, persons and war expenses generally. When 
damage has been done, he who has done the wrong 
must make reparation for it to the utmost limit of 
his resources. 

The American delegation struck a note of modera- 
tion : no claim should be made beyond what was es- 
tablished in the peace conditions, reparation for 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 125 

actions which were an evident violation of inter- 
national law, restoration of invaded country, and 
reparation for damage caused to the civil population 
and to its property. 

During the war there were a number of exagger- 
ated pronouncements on the immense resources of 
Germany and her capacity for payment. 

Besides all the burdens with which Germany was 
loaded, there was a discussion on the sum which the 
Allies should claim. If the war had cost seven hun- 
dred billion francs, the claims for damage to persons 
and property amounted to at least three hundred 
and fifty billions for all the Allies together. 

Whatever the sum might be, when it had been laid 
down in the treaty what damage was to be idemni- 
fied, the French negotiators claimed sixty-five per 
cent., leaving thirty-five per cent, for all the others. 

What was necessary was to lay down proportions, 
not the actual amount of the sum. It was impossible 
to say at once what amount the damages would 
reach: that was the business of the Reparations 
Commission. 

Instead of inserting in the treaty the enormous 
figures spoken of, the quality, not the quantity, of 
the damages to be indemnified was laid down. But 
the standard of reckoning led to fantastic figures. 

An impossible amount had to be paid, and the 
delegations were discussing then the very same 
things that ai^e being discussed now. The American 
experts saw the gross mistake of the other delega- 
tions, and put down as the maximum payment three 



126 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

hundred and twenty-five billion marks up to 1951, 
the first payment to be twenty-five billion marks in 
1921. So was invented the Reparations Commission 
machine, a thing which has no precedent in any 
treaty, being a commission with sovereign powers 
to control the life of the whole of Germany. 

In actual truth no serious person has ever thought 
that Germany can pay more than a certain number 
of billions a year, no one believes that a country can 
be subjected to a regime of control for thirty years. 

But the directing line of work of the treaties has 
been to break down Germany, to cut her up, to suffo- 
cate her. 

France had but one idea, and later on did not 
hesitate to admit it: to dismember Germany, to 
destroy her unity. By creating intolerable condi- 
tions of life, taking away territory on the frontier, 
putting large districts under military occupation, 
delaying or not making any diplomatic appointments 
and carrying on communications solely through mili- 
tary commissions, a state of things was brought 
about that must inevitably tend to weaken the con- 
stitutional unity of the German Empire. Taking 
away from Germany eighty-four thousand kilome- 
ters of territory, nearly eight million inhabitants 
and all the most important mineral resources, pre- 
venting the union of the German people with the 
six million and five hundred thousand of German 
Austrians to which Austria was then reduced, put- 
ting the whole German country under an intermin- 
able series of controls — all this did more harm to 



TREATIES— OEIGINS AND AIMS 127 

German unity than would have been done by taking 
the responsibility of a forcible and immediate di- 
vision to which the Germans could not have con- 
sented and which the Allies could not have claimed 
to impose. 

What has been said about Germany and the Ver- 
sailles Treaty can be said about all the other con- 
quered countries and all the other treaties, with 
merely varying proportions in each case. 

The verdict that has to be passed on them will 
very soon be shown by facts — if indeed facts have 
not shown already that, in great measure, what had 
been laid down can not be carried out. One thing 
is certain, that the actual treaties threaten to ruin 
conquerors and conquered, that they have not 
brought peace to JEurope, but conditions of war and 
violence. In Clemenceau's words, the treaties are 
a method of continuing war. 

But, even if it were possible to dispute that, as 
men's minds can not yet frame an impartial judg- 
ment and the danger is not seen by all, there is one 
thing that can not be denied or disputed, and that 
is that the treaties are the negation of the principles 
for which the United States and Italy, without any 
obligation on them, entered the war; they are a 
perversion of all the Entente had repeatedly pro- 
claimed; they break into pieces President Wilson's 
fourteen points which were a solemn pledge for the 
American people, and to-morrow they will be the 
greatest moral weapon with which the conquered of 
to-day will face the conquerors of to-day. 



THE CONQUEROES AND THE CONQUERED 

How many states are there in Europe? Before 
the war the political geography of Europe was 
virtually fixed by history. To-day every part of 
Europe is in a state of flux. The only absolute cer- 
tainty is that in Continental Europe conquerors and 
conquered are in a condition of spiritual, as well as 
economic, unrest. It is difficult indeed to say how 
many political units there are and how many are 
lasting, and what new wars are being prepared, if a 
way of salvation is not found by some common en- 
deavor to restore that peace which the treaty makers 
at Paris did not succeed in establishing. How many 
thinking men can, without perplexity, remember how 
many states there are and what they are : arbitrary 
creations of the treaties, creations of the moment, 
territorial limitations imposed by the necessities of 
international agreements. The situation of Russia 
is so uncertain that no one knows whether new states 
will arise as a result of her further disintegration 
or if she will be reconstructed in a solid, unified 
form, and whether other states among those which 
have arisen will collapse. 

128 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 129 

Without taking into account those traditional 
little states which are merely historical curiosities, 
as Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Monte Santo, not 
counting Iceland as a state apart, not including the 
Saar, which as a result of one of the absurdities of 
the Treaty of Versailles is an actual state outside 
Germany, but considering Montenegro as an exist- 
ing state, Europe probably comprises more than 
thirty states. Some of them are, however, in such 
a condition that they do not give promise of the 
slightest guarantee of life or security. Further, 
about thirty states arisen on the territory of the 
late Russian Empire as yet enjoy only a more or 
less conditional status. 

Europe has been rather Balkanized: not only did 
the war come from the Balkans, but also many ideas, 
which have been largely exploited in parliamentary 
and newspaper circles. Listening to many speeches 
and being present at many events to-day leaves the 
sensation of being in Belgrade or at Sarajevo. 

Europe, including Russia and including also the 
Polar archipelagoes, covers an area of a little more 
than ten million square kilometers. Canada is of 
almost the same size ; the United States of America 
has about the same territory. 

The historical procedure before the war was to- 
ward the formation of large territorial units; the 
post-bellum procedure is entirely toward a process 
of dissolution, and the splitting up, resulting in part 
from necessity and in part also from the desire to 
dismember the old empires and to weaken Germany, 



130 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

has assumed proportions almost impossible to fore- 
see. 

In the relations between the various states good 
and evil are not abstract ideas : political actions can 
only be judged by their results. If the treaties of 
peace which have been imposed on the conquered 
were capable of application, we could, from an 
ethnical point of view, regret some or many of the 
decisions; but we should nevertheless have to wait 
for the results of time for a definite judgment. 

The difficulty lies in the fact that the treaties that 
have been concluded can not be applied, or at least 
can not be applied without the rapid dissolution of 
Europe and the collapse of the conquerors them- 
selves. 

So the balance sheet of the Peace, three years 
after the armistice, that is three years after the war, 
indicates on the whole that the situation has grown 
steadily worse. The spirit of violence has not died 
out, and perhaps in some countries not even dimin- 
ished : on the other hand the causes of material un- 
rest and of instability have increased, the line of 
division between the two groups has grown sharper 
and the causes of hatred have been strengthened and 
unified. The mad dance of the foreign exchanges 
indicates a process of undoing and not a tendency to 
reconstruction. 

We have referred in a general manner to the con- 
ditions of Germany as a result of the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles : even worse is the situation of the other con- 
quered countries, in so far that either they have 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 131 

not been treated with due regard, or they have lost 
so much territory that they have no possibility of 
reconstructing their national existence. Such is the 
case with Austria, with Turkey and with Hungary. 
Bulgaria, which has a tenacious and compact popula- 
tion composed of small agriculturists faces less dif- 
ficult conditions of reconstruction. 

Germany has fulfilled loyally all the conditions of 
disarmament. After she had handed over her fleet, 
she destroyed her fortifications, she destroyed all 
the material up to the extreme limit imposed by the 
treaties, she disbanded her enormous armies. If in 
any one of the works of destruction she proceeded 
grudgingly, if she sought to delay them, it would be 
perfectly explicable. We walk more quickly to a 
ball than to a funeral. At the actual moment Ger- 
many has no fleet, no army, no artillery, and is in a 
condition in which she could not reply to any act of 
violence. This is why all the aggressions of the 
Poles against Germany have met with no reply in 
kind. 

All this is so evident that no one can raise doubts 
on the question. 

Every one remembers, said Hindenburg, the dif- 
ficult task that the United States had in putting in 
the field an army of a million men. Nevertheless 
they had the protection of the ocean during the 
period when they were preparing their artillery and 
the material for their air service. 

Germany for her aviation, for her heavy artillery, 
for her armaments is not even separated by the 



132 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

ocean from the Allies, and, on the contrary, they are 
firmly established in German territory: it would 
require many months to prepare a new war, during 
which France and her allies would not be inactive. 

General Ludendorff recently made certain 
declarations which have a capital importance, since 
they fit the facts exactly. He declared that a war 
of reconquest by Germany against the Allies and 
especially against France is for an indefinite time 
completely impossible from the technical and mili- 
tary point of view. France has an army largely 
supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march 
at any time, which could smash any German mili- 
tary organization hostile to France. The more so 
since by the destruction of the German war indus- 
tries, Germany has lost every possibility of arming 
herself afresh. It is absurd to believe that a Ger- 
man army ready for modern warfare can be or- 
ganized and put on a war footing secretly. A Ger- 
man army which could fight with the least possible 
hope of success against an enemy army, armed and 
equipped in the most modern manner, would first 
of all have to be based on a huge German war indus- 
try, which naturally could not be improved or built 
up in secret. Even if a third power wished to arm 
Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so 
quickly and mobilize her in sufficient time to pre- 
vent the enemy army from obtaining an immediate 
and decisive victory. 

It is recognized even in France that if Germany 
should start a war under present conditions this 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 133 

would indicate only her desire to commit suicide. In 
consequence of the treaty all possible obstacles have 
been marshalled against the German peril: and 
against Germany there have been accumulated "such 
guarantees that never before has history recorded 
the like/'* and Germany can not do anything for 
many years. Mobilization requires years and years 
for preparation and the greatest publicity for its 
execution. 

Wilson spoke of guarantees given and received for 
the reduction of armaments. Instead after the 
treaties had been concluded, if the conquered were 
completely disarmed, the conquering nations have 
continued to arm. Almost all the conquering na- 
tions have not only increased their expenses but 
their armies as well. If the conditions of peace im- 
posed by the treaties had been considered possible, 
considering that the former enemies are now harm- 
less, against whom is this continual race of arma- 
ments directed? 

We have already seen the military conditions im- 
posed on Germany, a small mercenary army, no 
obligatory conscription, no military instruction, no 
aviation, no artillery except a minimum, and insig- 
nificant quantity required by the necessities of civil 
order. Austria, Bulgaria, and Hungary can only 
have insignificant armies. Austria may maintain 
under arms 30,000 men, but her ruined finances only 
permit her according to the latest reports, to keep 
21,700: Bulgaria has 20,000 men plus 3,082 gen- 



*Tardieu, The Truth aiout the Treaty. 



134 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

darmes: Hungary, according to the Treaty of 
Trianon, has 35,000. Turkey in Europe which 
hardly exists any more as a territorial state, except 
for the city of Constantinople, where the sovereignty 
of the sultan is more apparent than real, has in 
reality no army at all. 

Taken all together the states which formed Ger- 
many's powerful nucleus of military strength as 
they are now reduced territorially, have under arms 
less than 180,000 men, not including naturally those 
new states risen on the ruins of the old central 
empires and which arm themselves by the request 
and sometimes in the interest of some state of the 
Entente. 

The old enemies therefore are not in a condition 
to make war, and are placed under all manner of 
controls. Sometimes the controls are even of a very 
singular nature. All have been occupied in giving 
the sea to the victors. Poland has obtained posses- 
sion of that absurd and immoral paradox, the State 
of Danzig, in order that it might have an outlet on 
the sea. The constant aim of the Allies, even in 
opposition to Italy, has been to give free and safe 
outlets on the seacoast to the Serb-Croat-Jugo-Slav 
State. 

At the Conference of London and San Remo, I 
repeatedly referred to the expenses of these military 
missions of control and often their outrageous im- 
position on the conquered who are suffering from 
hunger. There are generals who have credited them- 
selves with expenses and indemnity charges of such 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 135 

sorts that they have built up for themselves, salaries 
which are far superior to that of the president of the 
United States of America. At Vienna and Buda- 
pest, where the people are dying of hunger, the Com- 
mission for the Danube constitutes a veritable 
junketing trip. It is only necessary to look at the 
expense accounts of the Reparations Commissions 
to be convinced that this sad spectacle of greed and 
luxury humiliates the victors more than the con- 
quered. 

The most rapacious war profiteers, both civil and 
military, have had themselves appointed upon com- 
missions of control for the disarmament of the con- 
quered and the execution of the treaties, and nearly 
all of them run up salary and expense accounts that 
are simply stupendous. All this is done not only in 
a spirit of greed but in a spirit of violence and 
revenge. 

I do not wish to publish data which have been 
furnished to me by impartial persons in authority, 
but grafters and adventurers have been scattered 
throughout Europe. They were of such a sort that 
the robber barons of the Middle Ages might have 
studied their methods mth profit, and some day all 
this will be regarded as a disgrace. 

Enormous and useless commissions with impossi- 
ble aims and programs of dissipation are nothing 
less than thefts. 

And all this in the name of the rights of victory 
has been carried out by peoples who call themselves 
civilized and democratic. 



136 THE WEEOK OF EUROPE 

German-Austria has lost all access to the sea. 
She can not live on her resources with her enormous 
capital in ruins. She can not unite with Germany 
being a purely German country, because the treaty 
requires the unanimous consent of the League of 
Nations, and France having refused : it is therefore 
impossible ! She can not unite -with Czecho-Slovakia, 
with Hungary and other countries which have been 
formed from the Austrian Empire because that is 
against the aspirations of the German populations, 
and would mean the reconstitution of that Danube 
State which, with its numerous incompatibilities, 
was one of the essential causes of the war. Austria 
has lost all access to the sea, has turned over her 
fleet and her merchant marine, but in return has 
received in exchange the doubtful advantage of nu- 
merous Inter- Allied commissions of control to safe- 
guard the military, naval and aeronautic clauses. 
But there are clauses which can no longer be justi- 
fied, as for instance, since Austria has no longer 
seacoast, Art. 140 of the Treaty of St. Germain, 
which forbids the construction or acquisition of any 
sort of submergible vessel, even commercial. It is 
impossible to understand why (Art. 143) the mre- 
less high power station of Vienna is not allowed to 
transmit other than commercial telegrams, under 
the surveillance of the Allied and Associated Pow- 
ers, who take the trouble to determine even the 
length of the wave to be used. 

Before the war, in 1914, France desired to bring 
her army to the maximum of efficiency: opposite a 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 137 

great German army was to be found a great French 
army. 

Germany had in 1913, according to the budget pre- 
sented to the Reichstag, a standing army of 647,000 
soldiers of all arms, of which 105,000 were non-com- 
missioned officers, and 30,000 officers. It was the 
greatest army of Europe and of the world, consid- 
ered in its real efficiency. 

While Germany has no longer an army, France 
on the first of July, 1921, had under arms 810,000 
men of which 38,473 were officers, therefore many 
more than Germany had before the war. Consider- 
ing her situation and necessities this means the great- 
est military force which has been seen in modern 
times and can only have two reasons : either military 
domination, or ruin. The military budget proposed 
for the present year in the ordinary section is for 
2,782 million francs, besides that portion paid by 
Germany for the army of occupation: the extraor- 
dinary section of the same budget is for 1,712 million 
francs, besides 635 million for expenses repayable 
for the maintenance of troops of occupation in 
foreign countries. 

Austria-Hungary had in 1913 a total of 34,000 of- 
ficers and 390,249 men : the states which have arisen 
upon the ruins of her empire have a good many 
more. While German-Austria has as a matter of 
fact only 21,700 men, and Hungary has only 35,000, 
Czecho-Slavakia has 150,000 men of whom 10,000 are 
officers, Jugo-Slavia has about 120,000 of whom 
8,000 to 10,000 are officers. 



138 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

But the two Allies of France, Belgium and Poland, 
Belgium no longer neutral, Poland always in dis- 
order and in a state of continual provocation abroad 
and of increasing anarchy at home, have in their 
turn armies which previous to the war could have 
been maintained only by a first-class power. Bel- 
gium has doubled her peace effectives, which now 
amount to 113,500 men, an enormous army for a 
population which is about equal to that of the city of 
New York or London. 

Poland, whose economic conditions are completely 
disastrous, and may be described as having neither 
money nor credit, but which maintains more employees 
than any other country on earth, has under arms not 
less than 430,000 men, and often many more, and 
possibly has to-day many more, about 600,000. Her 
treaty with France imposes on her military obliga- 
tions, the extension of which can not be compatible 
with the policy of a country desiring peace. Poland 
has besides vast dreams of greatness abroad, and 
growing ruin in the interior. She enslaves herself 
in order to enslave others, and pretends in her dis- 
order to control and dominate much more intelligent 
and cultured peoples. 

Rumania has under arms 160,000 men, besides 
30,000 carabineers, and 16,000 frontier guards. 
Greece has, particularly on account of her undertak- 
ings in Asia Minor, which can only be accounted for 
on the score of her unintelligent nationalistic exalta- 
tion, more than 400,000 men under arms. She is 
suffocating under the weight of heavy armaments 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 139 

and can move only with difficulty. She is headed 
for ruin. 

The two wards of the Entente, Greece and Poland, 
exactly like naughty children, pursue a policy of 
greed and caprice. Poland is not the result of her 
own effort, but of the effort of the Entente. Greece 
never found the way to contribute heavily to the war 
with a strong army and after the war has the largest 
army which she has ever had in her history. 

Great Britain and Italy are the only two countries 
which have largely demobilized: in a much greater 
measure Great Britain. It is calculated that Great 
Britain has under arms 201,000 men, of which 15,030 
are officers. In this number however are not in- 
cluded 75,896 men in India and the personnel of the 
air force. 

In Italy, on the 31st of July, 1921, there were 
under arms 351,076 soldiers and 18,138 officers: in 
all 369,214, of which however 56,529 were carabi- 
neers carrying out duties almost exclusively of public 
order. 

Under the pressure and as a result of the example 
of the states which are creations of the war, those 
states which did not take part have also largely 
augmented their armies. 

So that now that the conquered are no longer to 
be considered a source of danger, we are faced with 
this paradoxical situation: the neutrals during the 
war have been developing their armaments, and the 
conquerors have increased theirs out of all propor- 
tion. 



140 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

No one can tell what may be the position of Bol- 
shevik Russia; probably she has not much less than 
a million of men under arms ; since in a communist 
regime the vagabonds and adventurers find the 
easiest occupation in the army. 

The conquerors, having disarmed the conquered, 
have imposed their economic conditions, their ab- 
surd morality and territorial humiliations as those 
imposed on Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary, condi- 
tions which are sufficiently difficult to maintain. 
And, as the ferment of hate develops, the conquerors 
do not disarm. Above all the little states do not 
disarm, who have wanted too much, have obtained 
too much and now do not know how to preserve 
what they have. In many countries for certain 
social reasons Avar has become an industry; they 
live on the state of war. What would they do with- 
out a state of war ? 

In general, then, Europe has considerably more 
men under arms than in 1913. Not only has it not 
disarmed, as the Entente always declared would be 
the consequence of victory through the principles 
of democracy, but the victors are always leaning to- 
ward further armament. The more difficult it be- 
comes to maintain the conditions of the peace, 
because of their severity and their absurdity, the 
more necessary it is to maintain armies. The con- 
quered have no armies : the conquerors are, or per- 
haps up to a short time ago were, sure that the big 
armies would serve to enforce the payment of the 
indemnities. Now as a matter of fact they ought not 
to serve for anything else. 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 141 

At the Conference of London, after a long dis- 
cussion, in February, 1920, the manifesto was drawn 
up which warned Europe of the perils of the eco- 
nomic situation. Lloyd George and myself were 
readily agreed that the gravest dangers, and the 
principal cause of high prices and of economic dis- 
order, was the maintenance of large armies and the 
continuation of the state of war. 

A Europe divided sharply into two parts can not 
be pacific, even after the conquered have yielded up 
their arms. The conquerors are bound to arm them- 
selves because of their OAvn restlessness, from the 
conviction that the only salvation is in force, which 
brings about, if not a true peace, at least an armed 
peace: if not the development of production and 
exchange, at least the possibility of cutting off from 
the markets the very foundations of riches. 

Violence begets new violence. If the conditions 
of the peace can not be fulfilled, other heavier con- 
ditions can be imposed. In France irresponsible 
people are already advocating the necessity of 
permanently occupying the Ruhr, the greatest Ger- 
man center for the production of coal, and are not 
inclined to respect the plebiscite of Upper Silesia. 

In violation of the treaty in the years 1920 and 
1921 France has five times threatened to invade 
the right bank of the Rhine. In March, 1920, with- 
out the consent of Italy and Great Britain, indeed 
in direct opposition to them, she occupied Frank- 
fort and Darmstadt. I was at the head of the Ital- 
ian Government at that time and did not fail to 



142 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

point out the risk and danger of such violent action. 
In July, 1920, the threat of another invasion forced 
Germany to yield. In March, 1921, Duisburg, 
Ruhrort and Dusseldorf were occupied on empty 
pretexts and the occupation was continued even 
after Germany had fulfilled the conditions which 
had been imposed. Again in April and May, 1921, 
France threatened to reinvade the Ruhr and it would 
seem that such invasion is part of the program of 
the French metallurgical industries which are eager 
to disorganize Germany's production of coal. 

When in a single year three invasions of the 
right bank of the Rhine have been made and two 
others have been threatened, even a great army is 
not sufficient. Imperialistic France, exhausted by 
war and her territorial problems, is constrained to 
maintain (and to make Germany maintain for her) 
an army larger than any recorded in modern his- 
tory. 

What has been said about the armies is true also 
about the fleets. There is a race toward the in- 
crease of naval armaments. If first that was the 
preoccupation of the conquered, now it is the pre- 
occupation of the conquerors. Since the war the 
roles have merely been reversed and distrust in- 
creased. 

The state of mind which has been created be- 
tween Great Britain, the United States of America 
and Japan, deserves to be seriously examined. The 
race for naval armaments in which these three coun- 
tries have entered is a fact to give us pause and the 



CONQUEEORS AND CONQUERED 143 

competition between the two great Anglo-Saxon 
peoples can not be other than harmful to civiliza- 
tion. 

The great war which has been fought, was at 
bottom the struggle between the Germanic races and 
the Slav races : it was fear of these latter and not of 
France that drove Germany to war and precipitated 
events. The results of the continental war however, 
are the suppression of Germany which lost, as well 
as of Russia which had not resisted, and France 
alone has gathered the fruits of the situation. If 
they can be called that, among the thorns which 
everywhere surround the victory. 

But the war was decided above all by the inter- 
vention of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, Great Britain 
with her dominions, the United States of America. 
Only the lack of political sagacity of German states- 
men made possible the union in a single group of 
peoples whose interests were fundamentally diver- 
gent! Great Britain, Russia, the United States of 
America, Japan, France, and Italy. 

But now the situation in Europe and especially 
that in Asia is creating new rivalries and this finds 
expression in the abuse of naval armament. The 
expenses for the navies, according to the figures of 
the various budgets from 1914 to 1921, have risen 
in the United States of America from 702,000,000 of 
lire to 2,166,000,000, in Great Britain from 1,218,000,- 
000, to 2,109,000,000, in Japan from 249,000,000 to 
1,250,000,000, in France from 495,000,000 to 1,083,- 
000,000, in Italy from 250,000,000 to 402,000,- 



144 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

000. The sums proposed for new constructions in 
the year 1921-22, are 450,000,000 in the United 
States of America, 475,000,000 for Great Britain, 
281,000,000 for Japan, 185,000,000 for France, and 
61,000,000 for Italy. 

The United States of America and Great Britain 
are countries of great resources : they can stand the 
strain. But Japan, which has but limited resources, 
can she support these for any length of time or 
must we assume that she has some immediate de- 
signs in prospect? 

The limitation of naval armaments has been 
agreed upon and accepted as a matter of necessity. 
A comparative table of the navies in 1914 and 1921 
shows that the fleets of the conquering countries 
are very much more powerful than they were be- 
fore the war. Nevertheless, Russia, and Austria- 
Hungary and the states created in their territories 
are not naval powers: Germany has lost all her 
fleet. The race for naval armaments concerns es- 
pecially the two Anglo-Saxon powers and Japan: 
the race for land armaments concerns all the con- 
querors of Europe and especially the small states. 

This situation can not fail to cause anxiety; but 
the greatest anxiety arises from the fact that the 
minor states, especially those which took no part 
in the war, are daily becoming more exacting and 
putting forth new aspirations. 

The whole system of the Treaty of Versailles is of 
a piece with the mistake made in the case of Po- 
land. Poland was not created as the noble mani- 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 145 

festation of the rights of nationality; Poland is not 
a racial unit. It is a great state which in its present 
form can not long survive, since not only does it 
contain large admixtures of foreign elements, but 
its entire population lacks the elements of cohesion. 
Poland, already afflicted by too large an Israelitic 
element, can not possibly assimilate the Germans, 
the Russians, and the Ukrainians which the Treaty 
of Versailles has unjustly given to her contrary to 
the explicit declarations of Wilson. 

Poland, to be sure, did, with the aid of the En- 
tente, repel the Bolshevik invasion but she is now 
in a state of permanent anarchy : she consumes and 
does not produce; her expenses have risen to fan- 
tastic proportions, and she has been unable to con- 
trol her income. No country in the world has ever 
made more abuse of paper currency: her paper 
money has probably depreciated more than that of 
any country on earth. She has not succeeded in 
organizing her own production and seeks to vitiate 
the production of her neighbors. 

The whole Treaty of Versailles is based on a 
vigorous and vital Poland. A harmless Germany, 
unable to unite with an equally harmless German- 
Austria, should be under the military control of 
France and Belgium on the west, and of Poland on 
the east. Poland, separating Germany from Rus- 
sia, besides imposing on Germany the territorial 
outrage of the Danzig corridor, cuts Germany off 
from any possibility of expansion and development 
in the East. Poland has been conceived as a great 



146 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

state. A Polish nation was not constituted; a Pol- 
ish military state was constituted, whose principal 
function is to be that of irritating, humiliating and 
disorganizing Germany. 

Poland, the result of a miracle of the war, (no 
one could foretell the simultaneous fall of the cen- 
tral empires and of the Russian Empire) was 
formed not as the result of a tenacious endeavor, 
but is a fortunate accident, a just reward to a long 
suffering people. The boundaries of Poland at one 
time extended to the Baltic Sea on the north, the 
Carpathians and the Dniester in the south; in the 
east her territory stretched on to Smolensk, and in 
the west to parts of Germany, Brandenburg and 
Pomerania. The new patriots dream of an immense 
Poland, the Old Poland of tradition, and further- 
more they hope to descend into the countries of the 
Ukraine and to dominate new territories. 

It is easy to foresee that, sooner or later, when 
the Bolshevik excesses have been ended, Russia will 
reconstruct herself. Germany in spite of all the 
attempts to break her up and crush her unity, within 
thirty or forty years will be the most formidable 
ethnical group of Continental Europe. What will 
then happen to a Poland which pretends to divide 
two peoples who represent numerically and will 
represent in other fields also the greatest forces of 
the Continental Europe of to-morrow"? 

Among many in France there is the old concep- 
tion of Napoleon I who considered the whole of 
European politics from an erroneous point of view, 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 147 

that of a lasting French hegemony in Europe, when 
the lasting hegemony of peoples is no longer possi- 
ble. In the sad solitude of his exile at Saint Helena, 
Napoleon I said that not to have created a powerful 
Poland as a keystone of the European edifice, not 
to have destroyed Prussia, and to have been mis- 
taken in regard to Russia, were the three great er- 
rors of his life. But all his work had as an end to 
put the life of Europe under the control of France, 
and was necessarily wrecked by reality, which does 
not permit the lasting mistake of a single nation 
which places herself above all the others in a free 
and progressive Europe. 

If the policy of the Entente toward Germany and 
toward the conquered countries, does not corre- 
spond either to joint declarations made during the 
war, or to the promises solemnly made by Wilson, 
the policy toward Russia has been nothing but a 
series of mistakes. In fact one can not talk of a 
policy of the Entente, since with the exception of a 
few errors committed in common, Great Britain, 
France and Italy have each followed their own 
policy. 

In his sixth point of the famous fourteen, which 
have now been besmirched and bedraggled like out- 
raged captive women, Wilson said on January 8, 
1918, that the treatment meted out to Russia by the 
sister nations, and therefore their loyalty in assist- 
ing her to settle herself, should be the stem proof 
of their good will. They were to show that they did 
not confound their own interests, or rather their 



148 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

selfish desires, with what should be done for Russia. 
The proof was most unfortunate. 

The attitude of the Entente toward Russia has 
had different phases. 

In the first phase, the prevailing idea, especially 
on the part of one of the Allies, was to send military 
expeditions in conjunction especially with Rumania 
and Poland. This idea was immediately abandoned 
on account of its very absurdity. 

In the second phase, the greatest hopes were 
placed in the blockade : of completely isolating Rus- 
sia, and depriving her of every possibility of trade, 
even though she no longer had any. At the same 
time war on the part of Poland and Rumania was 
encouraged, to help the attempt which the men of 
the old regime were making in the interior. France 
alone reached the point of officially recognizing the 
czarist undertaking of General Wrangel. 

Lloyd George, with the exception of some initial 
doubts, always had the clearest ideas in regard to 
Russia, and I never found myself in disagreement 
with him in judging the men and the Russian situa- 
tion. The situation, furthermore, could be readily 
understood by any calm and open-minded intelli- 
gence. 

For my part I always tried to follow that policy 
which would best bring about the most useful re- 
sult with the least damage. After the war the work- 
ing masses in Europe had the greatest illusions 
about Russian communism and the Bolshevik or- 
ganization. Every military expedition against Rus- 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 149 

sia tended to give the people the feeling not that 
war was being waged upon the enemy, but that an 
attempt to reorganize society on a communistic 
basis was being suppressed by violence and force. 
I have always thought that the dictatorship of the 
proletariat, that is, the dictatorship of ignorance 
and incapacity, would necessarily lead to disaster, 
and that hunger and death would follow violence. 
There are in the popular mind serious errors whose 
falsity must be demonstrated in practise before 
civilization can profit thereby. Our propaganda 
would have served nothing without the reality of 
ruin. Only the death by hunger of millions of men 
in communist Russia will convince the working 
masses in Europe and America that the experiment 
of Russia is not to be followed and rather is to be 
avoided at any cost. To suppress in blood after an 
unjust war the communist attempt, even if it were 
possible, would have meant ruin for Western civili- 
zation. 

On repeated occasions I have advised Rumania 
and Poland not to make any attempt against Russia 
and to limit themselves to defense. Every unjust 
aggression on the part of Bolshevik Russia would 
have found the Entente disposed to further sacrifice 
to save two free nations, but any provocation on 
their part would merely have weakened the general 
solidarity. 

When I assumed the direction of the government 
in June, 1919, an Italian military expedition was 
under orders for Georgia. The English troops, who 



150 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

were in small numbers, were withdrawing; Italy 
had, with the consent of the Allies, and partly by 
her own desire, prepared a big military expedition. 
A considerable number of divisions were ready, as 
also were the ships, to commence the transport. 
Georgia is a country of extraordinary natural re- 
sources, and it was thought that she would be able to 
furnish Italy with a great number of raw materials 
which she lacked. What surprised me was that not 
only men of the government, but intelligent finan- 
ciers and men of very advanced ideas, were con- 
vinced supporters of this expedition. 

However, confronted by much opposition, I im- 
mediately renounced this undertaking, and re- 
nounced it in a definite form, limiting myself to en- 
couraging every commercial enterprise. 

Certainly the Allies could not suggest anything 
unfriendly to Italy; but the effect of the expedi- 
tion was to put Italy directly at variance mth the 
government of Moscow, to launch her upon an ad- 
venture of which it was impossible to foresee the 
consequences. 

In fact, not long afterward Georgia fell into the 
hands of the Bolsheviks, who sent there an army of 
125,000 men, and since then she has not been able 
to rid herself of them. If Italy had made that ex- 
pedition, she would have been engaged in a frightful 
military adventure, with most difficult and costly 
transport in a theater of war of insuperable diffi- 
culty. To what end? 

Georgia before the war formed part of the Rus- 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 151 

sian Empire, and no country of the Entente had 
considered that unjust. Further, as though the vast 
empire and the dominion of the Caucasus were not 
enough for Russia, the Entente with monstrous con- 
descension had given to Russia Constantinople and 
the Straits and a huge zone in Asia Minor. How 
could you take away from Russia a territory that 
was legitimately hers? And vice versa, if Georgia 
and the other states of the Caucasus had sufficient 
strength to live autonomously, how can you dominate 
Aryan people who have risen to a notable state of 
development ? 

To go to Georgia inevitably meant war with Rus- 
sia for Italy, and one, moreover, fraught with ex- 
traordinary difficulties of transport in men and 
materials. In fact, later, the Government of Mos- 
cow, as we have said, succeeded in invading not only 
Georgia but nearly all the republics of the Cau- 
casus. And at San Remo, discussing the possibility 
of an expedition on the part of Great Britain, France 
and Italy to defend at least the oil production, after 
the report of a military committee presided over by 
Marshal Foch, the conclusion was quickly and easily 
arrived at that it was better to leave the matter 
alone. 

Italy had already made an expedition into Al- 
bania, the reason for which beyond the military 
necessities for the period of the war has never been 
understood, except that of spending a huge sum 
without receiving the gratitude of the Albanians; 
an expedition in Georgia would have done harm, the 



152 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

consequence of which can not be readily measured; 
it might, indeed, have meant ruin. 

Even those minds that are most blinded by prej- 
udice and hate recognize the complete failure of the 
Russian communist system. The so-called dictator- 
ship of the proletariat is reduced in practise to a 
military dictatorship of a communist group which 
represents only a fraction of the working classes 
and that not the best. The Bolshevik Government is 
in the hands of a small minority in which fanati- 
cism has taken the place of character. Everything 
that represented the work of the past has been 
destroyed and they have not known how to con- 
struct anything. The great industries have fallen 
and production is paralyzed. Russia has lived for 
a long time on the residues of her capitalistic pro- 
duction rather than on new production. The pro- 
ductivity of her agricultural and industrial work 
has been killed by communism, and the effectiveness 
of labor has been reduced to a minimum. The Rus- 
sian people are living in unparalleled misery, and 
entire sections are dying of hunger. The commun- 
ist regime in a short time has precipitated such dam- 
age and such misery as no system of oppression 
could achieve in centuries. It is the proof, if any 
were necessary, that the form of communist pro- 
duction is not only harmful but not even lasting. 
The economists say that it is absurd, but, given the 
collective madness which has attacked some people, 
nothing is absurd except to hope for the rapid re- 
covery of nations which have gone so far astray. 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUEEED 153 

If any country could be the scene of a communist 
experiment it was Eussia. Imperial Eussia repre- 
sented the most extensive contiguous territory that 
a state ever occupied in all history's records of vast 
empires. Under the czars a territory that was 
almost three times the size of the United States of 
America was occupied by a people who, with the 
exception of a few cases of individual revolt, were 
accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under 
Nicholas II a few men exercised rule in a most 
despotic form over more than one hundred and 
eighty million individuals spread over an inmaense 
territory. All obeyed blindly. Centralization was 
so great, and the obedience to the central power so 
absolute, that no hostile demonstration was toler- 
ated for long. The communist regime therefore was 
able to count not only on the apathy of the Eussian 
people but also on the blindest obedience. To this 
fundamental condition of success, to a government 
that must regulate production despotically, was 
joined another even greater condition of success. 
Eussia is one of those countries which, like the 
United States of America, China and Brazil (the 
four greatest countries of the earth, not counting 
the English dominions with much thinner popula- 
tions), possess within their own territories every- 
thing necessary for life. Imagine a country of self- 
contained economy, that lives entirely upon her own 
resources and trades with no one (and that is what 
happened in Eussia as a result of the blockade). 
Eussia has the possibility of realizing within her- 



154 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

self the most prosperous conditions of existence. 
She has in her territories everything : grain, textile 
fibers, combustibles of every sort; Russia is one 
of the greatest reserves, if not the greatest reserve, 
in the world. Well, the communist organization 
with its bureaucratic centralization, which com- 
munism must necessarily carry with it, was suffi- 
cient to arrest every form of production. Russia, 
which before could give grain to all, is dying of 
hunger; Russia, which had sufficient quantities 
of coal for herself and could give petroleum to 
all Europe, can no longer move her railways ; Russia, 
which had wool, flax, linen, and could have easily 
increased her cotton cultivation in the Caucasus, 
can not even clothe the soldiers and functionaries of 
the Bolshevik State. The stimulus to individual 
effort has died; few work; the peasants work only 
to produce what their families need ; the workers in 
the city are chiefly engaged in meetings and political 
reunions. All wish to live upon the state ; and pro- 
duction, organized autocratically and bureaucrati- 
cally, every day dries up and withers a bit more. 

To those who read the collection of laws issued by 
the Bolshevik Government, many institutions ap- 
pear not only reasonable, but also full of interest 
and justice. Also many laws of the absolute gov- 
ernments of past regimes appear intelligent and 
noble. But the law has not in itself any power of 
creation; it regulates relations, does not create 
them. It can even take away wealth from some and 
give it to others, but can not create the wealth. 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 155 

When the individual interest begins to lack, labor, 
which is pain and suffering, lags and does not pro- 
duce. To begin with, it weakens in the short days 
when energy is avoided, and then it stops through 
incapacity for energy. The old fundamental truth 
is that in all the Aryan tongues the words which 
indicate work have the same root as the words 
which denote pain. Among the great mass of mankind 
work is only done by necessity or under the stimulus 
of individual interest which goads men on to pro- 
duction of wealth. Men toil for riches; and there- 
fore in the Aryan tongues wealth means dominion 
and power. 

Two years ago I wanted, in spite of the opinion 
of others, to consent to the Italian Socialists visit- 
ing Russia. I was convinced that nothing would 
have served better to break in Italy the sympathy 
for Russia, or rather the illusions of the revolution- 
aries, than the sight of famine and disorder. Never 
did the Press of my country, or the greater part of 
it, criticize with more violence a proposal which I 
considered to be both wise and prudent. I am glad 
to state that I was right, and that, maybe through 
the uncertainties and the lessons of those who had 
spread the illusions, the Italian Socialists returned 
from Russia were bound to recognize that the com- 
munist experiment was the complete ruin of the 
Russia people. No conservative propaganda could 
have been more efficacious than the vision of the 
truth. 

I am convinced that the hostile attitude, and 



156 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

almost persecution, on the part of the Entente rather 
helped the Bolshevik Government, whose claims to 
discredit were already so numerous that it was not 
necessary to nullify them by an unjust and evident 
persecution. 

The Bolshevik Government could not be recog- 
nized : it gave no guarantees of loyalty, and too often 
its representatives had violated the rights of hos- 
pitality and intrigued through fanatics and excited 
people to extend the revolution. Revolution and 
government are two terms that can not co-exist. 
But not to recognize the government of the Soviet 
does not mean that the conditions of such recogni- 
tion must include that the war debt shall be guar- 
anteed, and, worse still, the pre-war debt, or that 
the gold resources and the metals of Russia shall 
be given as a guarantee of that debt. This morality, 
exclusively financial and plutocratic, can not be the 
base of international relations in a period in which 
humanity, after the sorrows of the war, has the 
annoyance of a peace which no one foresaw and 
of which very few in the early days understood the 
dangers. 

Even when there was a tendency favorable to the 
recognition of the republic of the Soviets, I was 
always decidedly against it. It is impossible to 
recognize a state which bases all its relations on 
violence, and which in its relations with foreign 
states seeks, or has almost always sought, to carry 
out revolutionary propaganda. Even w^hen, yield- 
ing to an impulse which it was not possible to avoid 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 157 

— in the new Italian Chamber, after the elections of 
1919 not only the Socialists, but above all the 
Catholic popular party and the party of the Rinno- 
vamento, of which the ex-soldiers especially formed 
part, voted unanimously an order of the day for the 
recognition of the actual government of Russia — 
I did not think it right to give, and did not give, 
effect to that vote, impulsively generous, which 
would have invested Italy with the responsibility of 
recognizing, even if it were de facto, the govern- 
ment of the Soviet. 

I have always, however, rebelled and would never 
give my consent to any military undertakings 
against Russia, not even to a participation in the 
undertakings of men of the old regime. It was easy 
to foresee that the population would not have fol- 
lowed them and that the undertakings were doomed 
to failure. However, all the attempts at military 
revolts and counter-revolutions were encouraged 
with supplies of arms and material. But in 1920 all 
the military undertakings, in spite of the help given, 
failed one after another. In February the attempt 
of Admiral Koltchak failed miserably, and in March 
that of General Judenic. So too with Denikin. All 
the hopes of the restoration were centered in Gen- 
eral Wrangel. The only grand duke with any claim 
to military authority also sent to tell me that this 
was a serious attempt with probability of success. 
General Wrangel, in fact, reunited the scattered 
forces of the old regime and occupied in force a 
large territory. France not only recognized in the 



158 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

government of Wrangel the legitimate representa- 
tive of Russia, but accredited her official repre- 
sentatives to him. In November, 1920, even the 
army of Wrangel, which appeared to be of granite, 
was broken up. Poland, through alternating 
vicissitudes, has shown the power of resistance, but 
has shown that she has no offensive power against 
Russia. So all the attempts at restoration have 
broken down, one after another. 

One of the greatest errors of the Entente has been 
to treat Russia on many occasions, not as a fallen 
friend, but as a conquered enemy. Nothing has 
been more deplorable than to have considered as 
Russia the men of the old regime, who have been 
treated for a long time as the representatives of an 
existing state when that state no longer existed. 

Let us suppose that the Bolshevik Government 
transforms itself and gives guarantees to the civil- 
ized nations not to conduct revolutionary agitation 
in foreign countries, to maintain the pledges she 
assumes, and to respect the liberty of citizens; the 
United States of America, Great Britain and Italy 
would recognize her at once. But France has an 
entirely different point of view. She mil not give 
any recognition unless the creditors of the old 
regime are guaranteed. This is an absolutely un- 
just and plutocratic point of view. 

In June, 1920, the Government of Moscow sent 
some gold to Sweden to purchase indispensable 
goods. Millerand, President of the Council of Min- 
isters and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 159 

to the minister of Sweden at Paris that if his gov- 
ernment consented to receive Russian gold it would 
be acting as a receiver of stolen goods. He then 
telegraphed to the minister of finance at Stockholm 
regretting that the government and public opinion 
in Sweden did not consider the legal claims of 
French creditors of the old Russian regime suffi- 
ciently binding to prevent the selling of Swedish 
goods for Russian gold. He added at the end that 
the association of creditors could utilize the news 
in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Govern- 
ment gave notice of the transaction and that they 
could make seizure of Russian gold sent to Sweden. 

This telegram, better than any speech, shows the 
diversity of opinion. 

The Bolshevik Government may be so immoral 
that we can not recognize it until it gives serious 
guarantees. But if the Government of Moscow 
sends a little of the gold that remains, or has re- 
mained, to buy goods, what right have we to 
sequestrate the gold in the interests of the creditors 
of the old regime? 

The new regime, bom after the revolution, may 
refuse to recognize the debts of the old regime and 
annul them. But this will not prevent our having 
relations "with it. 

With our absurd demands we have forced Ger- 
many to ruin her circulating medium. This already 
amounts to about one hundred billion of marks; if 
to-morrow it amounts to one hundred and fifty or to 
two hundred it will be necessary to annul it, very 



160 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

mucli the same as was done in the case of the 
assignats. Is this a sufficient reason for not recog- 
nizing Germany! 

The new plutocratic conception, which lies behind 
the policy of France, is not lasting, and the people 
distrust it. 

Bolshevism, as I have repeatedly stated, can not 
be judged by our Western eyes : it is not a popular 
and revolutionary movement; it is the religious 
fanaticism of the orthodox Eastern mind grafted on 
the trunk of czarist despotism. 

Italy is the country which suffers most from the 
lack of continuous relations with Russia in so far 
that almost all Italian commerce, and in consequence 
the prices of freight and goods have been for almost 
half a century regulated by the traffic with the 
Black Sea. 

Ships that leave England fully laden with goods 
for Italy generally continue to the Black Sea, where 
they fill up with grain, petroleum, etc., and then 
return to England, after having taken fresh cargoes 
in Italy and especially iron in Spain. It was pos- 
sible in Italy for long periods of time to obtain most 
favorable freights and have coal at almost the same 
price as in England. The voyages of the ships were 
made, both coming and going, fully laden. 

The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts espe- 
cially Italy. Great Britain has Mediterranean inter- 
ests ; France is partly a Mediterranean nation ; Italy 
is altogether a Mediterranean nation. 

Although Italy has a particular interest in reop- 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 161 

ening relations with Russia, the Italian Government 
has understood that the best and shortest way is 
not to recognize the Government of Moscow. But 
Italy will never subordinate her recognition to 
plutocratic considerations. Whatever government 
there may be in Italy, it will never associate itself 
with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order 
to be recognized, to guarantee the payment of 
obligations assumed previous to the war and the 
revolution. Civilization has already suppressed 
corporal punishment for insolvent debtors; and 
slavery, from which individuals are released, should 
not be imposed on nations by democracies which say 
they are civilized. 

The fall of the communistic organization in Rus- 
sia is inevitable. Very probably from the immense 
revolutionary catastrophe which has hit Russia 
there will spring up the diffusion of a regime of 
small landed proprietors. Whatever is contrary to 
human nature is not lasting, and communism can 
only accumulate misery, and on its ruins mil arise 
new forms of life which we can not yet define. But 
Bolshevik Russia can still rely upon two elements 
which we do not habitually take into account: the 
apathy and indolence of the people on the one hand, 
and the strength of the military organization on the 
other. No other people would have resigned itself 
to the intense misery and to the infinite sufferings 
which tens of millions of Russians endure without 
opposition. But still in the midst of so much misery 
no other people would have kno^vn how to maintain 



162 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

a powerful and disciplined army such as is the army 
of revolutionary Russia. 

The Russian people have never had any sym- 
pathy for the military undertakings which the En- 
tente has aided. During some of the meetings of 
premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the 
sittings of the conferences, to speak with the repre- 
sentatives of the new states, especially those from 
the Caucasus. They were all agreed in considering 
that the action of the men of the old regime, and 
especially Denildn, was directed at the suppression 
of the independent states and to the return of the 
old forms, and they attributed to this the aversion 
of the Russian people to them. 

Certainly it is difficult to speak of Russia where 
there exists no longer a free Press and the only 
interest of the people lies in preventing hunger 
from killing them. Although it is a disastrous or- 
ganization, the organization of the Soviet remains 
still the only one, for which it is not possible im- 
mediately to substitute another. Much time and a 
complete change of front will be necessary before 
the Russian people can again slowly enter into 
international life. 

The peasants, who form the enormous mass of 
the Russian people, look with terror on the old 
regime. They have occupied the land and intend 
to keep it ; they do not want the return of the great 
Russian land-owners who possessed lands covering 
provinces and were even ignorant of their posses- 
sions. One of the causes that has permitted Bol- 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 163 

shevism to last is, as I have said, the attitude of 
the Entente, which on many occasions has shown 
the greatest sympathy for the men of the old regime. 
The czar of Russia was an insignificant man, all 
the grand dukes were persons without dignity and 
without credit, and the court and government 
abounded in unscrupulous men — adventurers, 
thieves, and drunkards. If the Bolshevik Govern- 
ment has spelled ruin, no one can deny that a great 
part of the blame belongs to the old regime, the re- 
turn of which no honest man desires. 

To allow Poland to occupy large tracts of purely 
Russian territory w^as a no less serious error. 

There are, therefore, in Europe so many causes 
of unrest that they are a matter of concern not only 
to the conquered countries but to the conquering 
countries as well. We have already seen how Ger- 
many and the states which form part of her group 
can not now any longer represent a danger of war 
for many years to come, and that none the less 
the victorious countries and new states continue to 
arm themselves in a most formidable manner. We 
have seen what an element of disorder Poland has 
become and how the policy of the Entente toward 
Russia has constituted a permanent danger. 

But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground 
is so shifting that any new construction threatens 
ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, can not 
live under the conditions imposed on them by the 
treaties. But the new states for the most part are 
themselves in a sufficiently serious position. 



164 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

With the exception of Finland all the other states 
which have arisen on the ruins of the Russian Em- 
pire are in serious difficulty. If Esthonia and 
Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Latvia 
is thoroughly ruined and hunger and tuberculosis 
rule almost everywhere, as in many districts of Po- 
land and Russia. At Riga hunger and disease have 
caused enormous losses among the population. 
Recently 15,000 children were in an extremely 
serious physical and mental condition. In a single 
dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for 
treatment 151 were under-nourished, 229 were 
scrofulous, 66 anemic, and 217 suffering from 
rickets. The data published in England and the 
United States and those of the Red Cross of Geneva 
are terrible. 

Even with the greatest imagination it is difficult 
to think how Hungary and Austria can live and 
carry out, even in the smallest degree, the obliga- 
tions imposed by the treaties. By a moral paradox, 
besides living they must indemnify the victors, ac- 
cording to the Treaties of St. Germain and the 
Trianon, for all the losses which the war has brought 
in its train. For it is held that the war was caused 
by Austria and Hungary and that the victors only 
suffered from it. 

Hungary has undergone the greatest occupation 
of her territories and her wealth. This poor great 
country, which saved both civilization and Chris- 
tianity, has been treated with a bitterness that noth- 
ing can explain except the greed of those surround- 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 165 

ing her, and the fact that the weaker people, seeing 
the stronger overcome, wish and insist that she shall 
be reduced to impotence. Nothing, in fact, can 
justify the measures of violence and the depreda- 
tions committed in Magyar territory. For a long 
while no one knew what the Rumanian occupation 
in Hungary, with its systematic plundering and its 
systematic destruction, amounted to. The stern 
rebuke which Lloyd George addressed in London 
to the premier of Rumania was, however, entirely 
justified. After the war every one wanted some 
sacrifice from Hungary, and no one dared to say a 
word of peace or good will for her. When I tried it 
was too late. The victors hated Hungary for her 
proud defense. The adherents of Socialism do not 
love her because she had to resist, under more than 
difficult conditions, internal and external Bolshe- 
vism. The international financiers hate her because 
of the acts of violence committed against the Jews. 
So Hungary suffers all the injustices without de- 
fense, all the miseries without help, and all the in- 
trigues without resistance. 

Before the war Hungary had an area almost 
equal to that of Italy, 282,870 square kilometers, 
with a population of 18,264,533 inhabitants. The 
Treaty of Trianon reduced her territory to 91,114 
kilometers — that is, 32.3 per cent. — and the popula- 
tion to 7,481,954, or 41 per cent. It was not suffi- 
cient to cut off from Hungary the populations which 
were not ethnically Magyar. Without any reason 
1,084,447 Magyars have been handed over to 



166 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

Czecho-Slovakia, 457,597 to Jugo-Slavia, 1,704,851 
to Rumania. Also other sections of the population 
have been detached without reason. 

Among all the belligerents Hungry perhaps is 
the country which in comparison with the popula- 
tion has had the greatest number of dead ; the mon- 
archy of the Hapsburgs knew that they could count 
on the bravery of the Magyars, and they sent them 
to destruction in all the most bloody battles. So the 
little people gave over 500,000 dead and an enor- 
mous number of wounded and sick. 

The territories taken from Hungary represent 
two-thirds of her mineral wealth ; the production of 
three million quintali (300,000 tons) of gold and 
silver is entirely lost; the great production of salt 
is also lost to her (about 250,000 tons). The pro- 
duction of iron ore is reduced by 19 per cent., of an- 
thracite by 14 per cent., of lignite by 70 per cent. ; of 
the 2,029 factories, hardly 1,241 have remained to 
Hungary; more than three-quarters of the magnifi- 
cent railway wealth has been given away. 

Hungary at the same time has lost her greater 
resources in agriculture and cattle breeding. 

The capital, henceforth, too large for a too small 
state, carries on amid the greatest difficulties, and 
there congregate the most pitiable of the Transyl- 
vanian refugees and those from other lost regions. 

The vital statistics of Hungary, which up to a 
few years ago were excellent, are now alarming. 
The mortality among the children and the mortality 
from tuberculosis have become alarming. At Buda- 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 167 

pest, even after the war, the number of deaths sur- 
passes the number of births. The statistics pub- 
lished by Doctor Perenczi prove that the number of 
children afflicted with rickets and tuberculosis 
reaches in Budapest the terrific figure of two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand in a population of about two 
millions. It is said that practically all the new-born 
in recent years, partly through the privations of the 
mothers and partly from the lack of milk, are 
tubercular. 

The conditions of life are so serious that there is 
no comparison; some prices have only risen five to 
tenfold, but very many from thirty to fifty and even 
higher. Grain, which before the war cost thirty-one 
crowns, costs now five hundred crowns; corn has 
passed from seventeen to two hundred and twenty 
and two hundred and fifty crowns. A kilogram of 
rice, which used to cost seventy centimes, can be 
found now only at eighty crowns. Sugar, coffee and 
milk are at prices that are absolutely prohibitive. 

Of the financial situation it is almost useless to 
speak. The documents presented to the Conference 
of Brussels are sad evidence, and a sure index is the 
course of the crown, now so reduced as to have 
hardly any value in international relations. The 
total income is no more than a quarter of the total 
expenditure, and the rest is covered by depreciating 
the currency. 

Such is the situation of Hungary, which has lost 
everything, and which suffers the most atrocious 
privations and the most cruel pangs of hunger. In 



168 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

this condition she should, according to the Treaty 
of Trianon, not only have sufficient for herself, 
but pay indemnities to the enemy. 

The Hungarian deputies, at the sitting which ap- 
proved the Treaty of Trianon, were clad in mourn- 
ing, and many were weeping. At the close they all 
rose and sang the national hymn. 

A people which is in the condition of mind of the 
Magyar people can accept the actual state of affairs 
as a temporary necessity, but have we any faith that 
it will not seek all occasions to retake what it has 
unjustly lost, and that in a certain number of years 
there will not be new and more terrible wars ? 

I can not hide the profound emotion which I felt 
when Count Apponyi, on January 16, 1920, before 
the Supreme Council at Paris, wished to state the 
case of Hungary. 

You, gentlemen [he said], whom victory has permitted 
to place yourselves in the position of judges, you have 
pronounced your former enemies guilty and the point of 
view which directs you in your resolutions is that of mak- 
ing the consequences of the war fall on those who were 
responsible for it. 

Let us examine now with great serenity the conditions 
imposed on Hungary, conditions which are inacceptable 
without the most serious consequences. Taking away 
from Hungary the larger part of her territory, the greater 
part of her population, the greater portion of her eco- 
nomic resources, can this particular severity be justified 
by the general principles which inspire the Entente? 
Hungary not having been heard (and she was not heard 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 169 

except to take note of the declaration of the head of the 
delegation), can not accept a verdict which destroys her 
without her understanding the reasons for it. 

The figures furnished by the Hungarian delega- 
tion left no doubt behind: they treated of the dis- 
memberment of Hungary and the sacrifice of three 
millions and a half of Magyars and of the German 
population of Hungary to people certainly more 
ignorant and less advanced. At the end Apponyi 
and the Hungarian delegation did not ask for any- 
thing more than a plebiscite for the territories in 
dispute. 

After he had explained in a marvelous manner 
the great function of historic Hungary, that of hav- 
ing saved on various occasions Europe from bar- 
baric invasion, and of having kno^vn how to main- 
tain its unity for ten centuries in spite of the many 
differences among nations. Count Apponyi showed 
how important it was for Europe to have a solid 
Hungary against the spread of Bolshevism and vio- 
lence. He added: 

You can say that against all these reasons there is only 
one — victory, the right of victory. We know it, gentle- 
men; we are sufficient realists in politics to count on this 
factor. We know what we owe to victory and we are 
ready to pay the price of our defeat. But should this be 
the sole principle of construction : that force alone should 
be the basis of what you would build, that force alone 
should be the base of the new building, that material force 
alone should be the power to hold up those constructions 



170 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

which fall while you are trying to build them? The future 
of Europe would then be sad, and we can not believe it. 
We do not find all that in the mentality of the victorious 
nations; we do not find it in the declarations in which 
you have defined the principles for which you have 
fought, and the objects of the war which you have proposed 
to yourselves. 

And after having referred to the traditions of 
the past, Count Apponyi added: 

We have faith in the sincerity of the principles which 
you have proclaimed: it would be doing you injustice to 
think otherwise. We have faith in the moral forces with 
which you have wished to identify your cause. And all 
that I wish to hope, gentlemen, is that the glory of your 
arms may be surpassed by the glory of the peace which 
you will give to the world. 

The Hungarian delegation was simply heard ; but 
the treaty, which had been previously prepared and 
was the natural consequence of the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles, was in no way modified. 

An examination of the Treaty of Trianon is super- 
fluous. By a stroke of irony the financial and 
economic clauses inflict the most serious burdens on 
a country which had lost almost everything: which 
has lost the greatest number of men proportionately 
in the war, which since the war has had two revolu- 
tions, which for four months suffered the sackings 
of Bolshevism — led by Bela Kun and the worst ele- 
ments of revolutionary political crime — and, finally, 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 171 

has suffered a Rumanian occupation, whicli was 
worse almost than the revolutions or Bolshevism. 

It is impossible to say which of the peace treaties 
imposed on the conquered is lasting and which is the 
least endurable: after the Treaty of Versailles, all 
the treaties have had the same tendency and the 
same conformation. 

The situation of German- Austria is now such that 
she can say with Andromache: ''Let it please God 
that I have still something more to fear!" Austria 
has lost everything, and her great capital, which 
was the most joyous in Europe, shelters now a 
population whose resources are reduced to the 
minimum. The slump in her production, which is 
carried on amid all the difficulties, the fall in her 
credit, the absolute lack of foreign exchanges, the 
difficulty of trading with the hostile populations 
that surround her, put Austria in an extremely 
difficult position and in increasing and continuous 
decadence. The population, especially in the cities, 
is forced to endure the hardest privations; the in- 
crease of tuberculosis is continuous and threaten- 
ing. 

Bulgaria has had rather less loss, and although 
large tracts of Bulgarian territory have been given 
without any justifiable motive to Greece and Jugo- 
slavia, and although all outlet on the ^gean has 
been taken from her by assigning the Greece lands 
which she can not maintain, on the whole Bulgaria, 
after the Treaty of Neuilly, has less serious griev- 
ances than the other conquered countries. Bulgaria 



172 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

had a territorial extension of 113,809 square kilo- 
meters; she has now lost about 9,000 square kilo- 
meters. She had a population of 4,800,000, and has 
lost about 400,000. 

The necessity of an outlet to the sea, in the con- 
fused ideology of President Wilson, has been the 
cause of most grievous errors. To give Poland a 
port, there was created the absurd Free State of 
Danzig and the Polish corridor in the territory of 
Danzig. To create a port for Armenia it was for 
a time thought necessary to constitute an enormous 
Armenia with no principle of vital cohesion and to 
do this it would have been necessary to herd the 
Turks into a limited area of Asia Minor. It would 
seem as if, for the Entente, the need of seacoast 
applied only to the victors and to friendly countries. 
Austria and Hungary, it seems, have no need of 
access to the sea; and Bulgaria was deprived of her 
outlet thereon even though it was necessary to vio- 
late the rights of nationahty to hamstring her in 
this fashion. 

As for Turkey, if the treaties should continue to 
exist, she can be considered as disappearing from 
Europe and on the road to disappearance from 
Asia. The Turkish population has been distributed 
haphazard, especially to Greece, or divided up under 
the form of mandates to countries of the Entente. 
According to the Treaty of Sevres of August 10, 
1920, Turkey abandons all her territory in Europe, 
withdrawing her frontier to the Tchataldje lines. 

Turkey in Europe is limited, therefore, to the 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 173 

surroundings of Constantinople, with little more 
than two thousand square kilometers, and a popula- 
tion which is rather hard to estimate, but which is 
that only of the city and the surroundings — per- 
haps 1,300,000 men. In Asia Minor, Turkey loses 
the territory of the Sanjak of Smyrna, over which, 
however, she retains a purely nominal sovereignty ; 
the territory still undefined of the Armenian Re- 
public: Syria, Cilicia, Palestine and Mesopotamia, 
which become independent under mandatory pow- 
ers; in Arabia the territory of the Hedjaz, while 
the remainder of the peninsula will enjoy almost 
complete independence. Besides, Constantinople 
and the Straits are subject to international control, 
and the three states now the most closely interested 
— Great Britain, France and Italy — assume the con- 
trol of the finances and other aspects of the Otto- 
man administration. 

Every program has ignored Turkey except when 
the Entente has had opportunity to favor Greece. 
The Greece of Venezelos was the ward of the Entente 
almost more than Poland itself. Having participated 
in the war to a very small extent and with almost 
insignificant losses, she has, after the war, almost 
trebled her territory and almost doubled her popu- 
lation. Turkey was virtually ejected from Europe ; 
Greece has taken almost everything. The idea of 
fixing the frontier on the Enos Medea line was also 
rejected, and the frontier was fixed at Tchataldje; 
Constantinople was under the fire of the Greek ar- 
tillery, and Constantinople was nominally the only 



174 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

city that remained to Turkey. The Sanjak of 
Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was the true wealth of Tur- 
key; it represented forty- five per cent, of the 
imports of the Turkish Empire. Although the popu- 
lation of the whole vilayet of Audin and the ma- 
jority of the Sanjak of Smyrna was Mussulman, 
Greece was given dominion over it. The whole of 
Thrace was assigned to Greece; Adrianople, a city 
sacred to Islam, which contains the tombs of the 
Caliphs, has passed to the Greeks. 

Nothing could be more absurd than the treatment 
of Turkey. There is no justification for placing 
Constantinople under perpetual control, for hand- 
ing Smyrna and Thrace over to Greece, for abolish- 
ing the Turkish sovereignty over Mecca and Medina 
or for ruining and subjecting sections of the Turk- 
ish Empire. In all the international conferences I 
have attempted, as far as I was able, to oppose, or 
at least to check, the raids upon Turkey. But the 
fundamental errors of the Treaty of Versailles 
were here to beget some of their most absurd and 
harmful consequences. 

The Entente, despite the resistance of some of 
the heads of governments, always yielded to the 
requests of Greece. There was a sentiment of 
antipathy for the Turks and there was a sympathy 
for the Greeks: there was the idea to put outside 
Europe all Mussulman dominion, and the remem- 
brance of the old propaganda of Gladstone, and 
there were the threats of Wilson, who in one of his 
proposals desired nothing less than to put Turkey 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 175 

outside Europe. But above all there was the per- 
sonal work of Venezelos. Every request, without 
being even examined thoroughly, was immediately 
justified by history, statistics, ethnography. In 
any discussion he took care to manipulate the docu- 
ments, solliciter doucement les textes, as is often 
done by unscrupulous scholars. I have met few men 
in my career who were at once as uncompromisingly 
patriotic and as profoundly able as Venezelos. 
Whenever in friendly spirit I advised him to use 
moderation and showed him the necessity of limit- 
ing the Greek demands I never found in him a dif- 
ficult or unyielding spirit. He knew how to ask and 
obtain, to profit by all the circumstances, to utilize 
all the resources better even than the professional 
diplomats. In asking he always had the air of offer- 
ing, and in obtaining, he appeared to be conceding 
something. He had at the same time a supreme 
ability to obtain the maximum force with the min- 
imum of means and a mobility of spirit truly sur- 
prising. He saw no difficulty, convinced as he was, 
of erecting a Greek Empire on the remnants of Tur- 
key. Every time that doubts were expressed to 
him, or he was shown data which should have mod- 
erated the positions, he denied the most evident 
things, he recognized no danger, and saw no diffi- 
culty. He affirmed always with absolute calm the 
certainty of success. It was his opinion that the 
Balkan peninsula should be, in the north, under the 
action of the Jugo-Slav State and of Rumania, and 
in the south of Greece. But Greece, having almost 



176 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

all the islands of the ^gean, a part of the territory 
of Turkey and all the ports in the ^gean, from 
which the Bulgarians had been expelled, and having 
the Sanjak of Smyrna, should form a littoral Em- 
pire of the East and chase the Turks into the poorer 
districts of Anatolia. 

In the facility with which the demands of Greece 
were accepted (and in spite of everything they were 
accepted even after the fall of Venezelos) there was 
not only a sympathy for Greece, but, above all, the 
certainty that a large Greek army at Smyrna would 
serve principally to make secure those countries 
which have and wished to consolidate great interests 
in Asia Minor. As long as the Turks in Anatolia 
had their eyes upon Smyrna they could not use their 
forces elsewhere. For the same motive, in the last 
few years, all the blame is attributed to the Turks. 
If they have erred much, the errors, even the minor 
ones, have been transformed into crimes. The 
atrocities of the Turks have been described, illus- 
trated, exaggerated; all the other atrocities, often 
no less serious, have been forgotten or ignored. 

The idea of a Hellenic Empire which dominates 
all the coast of the ^gean in Europe and Asia en- 
counters one fundamental difficulty. To dominate 
the coast it is necessary to have the control of a 
large hinterland. The Romans, in order to dominate 
Dalmatia, were obliged to go as far as the Danube^ 
Alexander the Great, to have a Greek Empire, had, 
above all, to provide for land dominion. Commer- 
cial colonies or penetration in isolation are certainly 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 177 

possible, but vast political organizations are not 
possible. It is not sufficient to have territory; it 
is necessary to organize it and regulate its life. 
Men do not live on what they eat, and even less on 
what they digest, but on what they assimilate. 

Historians of the future will be profoundly sur- 
prised to learn that in the name of the principle of 
nationality the vilayet of Adrianople, which con- 
tains the city dearest to the heart of Islam after 
Mecca, was given to the Greeks. According to the 
very data supplied by Venezelos there were 500,000 
Turks, 365,000 Greeks, and 107,000 Bulgarians; in 
truth the Turks are in much greater superiority. 

The grand vizier of Turkey, in April, 1920, pre- 
sented a note to the ambassadors of the Entente 
to claim the rights on certain vilayets of the Turk- 
ish Empire. According to this note, in "Western 
Thrace there were 522,574 inhabitants, of which 
362,445 were Mussulmans. In the vilayet of Adrian- 
ople, out of 631,000 inhabitants, 360,417 were Mus- 
sulmans. The population of the vilayet of Smyrna 
is 1,819,616 inhabitants, of which 1,437,983 are Mus- 
sulmans. Perhaps these statistics are biased, but 
the statistics presented by the opposing party were 
even more fantastic. 

After having had so many territorial concessions, 
Greece — ^who during the war had enriched herself 
by commerce — ^is obliged, even after the return of 
Constantine, who did not know how to resist the 
pressure, to undertake most risky undertakings in 
Asia Minor, and has no way of saving herself except 



178 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

by an agreement with Turkey. In the illusion of 
conquering the Turkish resistance, she is now 
obliged to maintain an army twice as big as that of 
the British Empire! The dreams of greatness in- 
crease : some little military success has given Greece 
the idea also that the Treaty of Sevres is only a 
foundation regulating the relationship with the 
Allies and with the enemy, and constituting for 
Greece a title of rights, the full possession of which 
can not be modified. The war determines new 
rights that can not invalidate concessions already 
given, which, on the contrary, are reinforced and be- 
come sanctioned, but render necessary new conces- 
sions. 

"What will happen? While Greece dreams of 
Constantinople and we have disposed of Constan- 
tinople and the Straits, Turkey seems resigned to 
Constantinople itself, to-day a very poor interna- 
tional city rather than a Turkish city. The Treaty 
of Sevres says that it is true that the contracting 
states are in agreement in not offending any of 
the rights of the Ottoman Government of Con- 
stantinople, which remains the capital of the Turk- 
ish Empire, always under the reservations of the 
conditions of the treaty. That is equivalent to 
saying of a political regime that it is a controlled 
"liberty," just as in the time of the czars it was 
said that there existed a Monarchie constitutionnelle 
sous un autocrate. Constantinople under the Treaty 
of Sevres is the free capital of the Turkish Empire 
under the conditions contained in the treaty whose 
avowed purpose is to limit all liberty. 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 179 

It is not true that all the wrongs of the past have 
been entirely on the side of Turkey. We ought not 
to forget all that the great European states have 
done to disgrace, break up and control Turkey. Nor 
is it true that the Turks are not adapted to a liberal 
regime, nor that they have all the faults that have 
been attributed to them. The Turkish population is 
fundamentally good, tolerant, and capable of pro- 
gressing and of developing a very real civilization. 
It is a serious mistake to attempt to humiliate the 
Turks and to strangle Turkey. 

The force of Turkey has always been in her im- 
mense power of resistance. She wins by resisting, 
she wears down her enemies with the aid of time. 
To conquer the resistance of Turkey, both in the 
new territories of Europe and in Asia Minor, Greece 
will have to exhaust the greater part of her limited 
resources. The Turks have always brought to a 
standstill those who would dominate them, by a 
stubborn resistance which is fanaticism and national 
dignity. On the other hand, the Treaty of Sevres, 
which has systematized in part Eastern Europe, was 
concluded in the absence of two personages not to 
be overlooked, Russia and Germany, the two states 
which have the greatest interest there. Germany, 
once she had been defeated, as she could not give her 
explanations on the conclusions of peace, was not 
able to intervene in the solutions of the question of 
the Orient. Russia was absent. Worn out with the 
force of a war superior to her energies, she fell into 
convulsions, and is now struggling between the two 



180 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

misfortunes of communism and misery, of which it 
is hard to say whether one, or which of the two, is 
the consequence of the other. 

One of the most characteristic facts concerns Ar- 
menia. The Entente never spoke of Armenia. In 
his fourteen points "Wilson neither considered nor 
mentioned it. It was an argument difficult for the 
Entente since Russia was straining in reality (under 
the pretext of defending the Christians) to take 
Turkish Armenia without giving up Russian Ar- 
menia. 

But suddenly some religious societies and some 
philanthropic people instituted a vast movement for 
the liberation of Armenia. Nothing could be more 
just than to create a small Armenian State which 
would have allowed the Armenians to group them- 
selves around Lake Van and to affirm their national 
unity in one free state. But here also the hatred of 
the Turks, the agitation of the Greeks, the dimly 
illuminated philanthropy, determined a large 
movement to form a great State of Armenia which 
should have outlets on the sea and great territories. 

Thus people no longer talked of a small state, a 
refuge and safe asylum for the Armenians, but of a 
large state. President Wilson himself, during the 
Conference of San Remo, sent a message in the form 
of a reminder, if not a reproof, to the European 
States of the Entente because they did not proceed 
to the constitution of a State of Armenia. It was 
suggested to bring it down to Trebizond, to include 
Erzeroum in the new Armenia, a vast State of Ar- 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 181 

menia in which the Armenians would have been in 
the minority. And all that in homage to historical 
tradition and for dislike of the Turks! A great 
Armenia creates also a series of difficulties among 
which is that of the relations between Armenia, 
Georgia and Azerbajan, supposing that in the fu- 
ture these states cut themselves off definitely from 
Russia. The Greater Armenia would include the 
vilayet of Erzeroum, which is now the center of 
Turkish nationalism, and contains more Mussulmans 
than Armenians. As a matter of fact the vilayet of 
Erzeroum has 673,000 Mussulmans, 4,800 Greeks 
and 135,000 Armenians. 

When it was a question of giving Greece terri- 
tories in which the Greeks were in a minority it was 
said that the populations were so badly governed by 
the Turks that they had the right to pass under a 
better regime, whatever it might be. But for a 
large part of the territory of the so-called Greater 
Armenia it is possible to commit the error of put- 
ting large majorities of Mussulman people under a 
hostile Armenian minority. 

The Armenians would have to fight at the same 
time against the Kurds and against Azerbajan ; they 
are surrounded by enemies on all sides. 

But the whole of the discussion of giving the 
vilayet of Erzeroum to Armenia or leaving it to 
Turkey is entirely superfluous, for it is not a ques- 
tion of attributing territory but of determining 
actual situations. If it is desired to give to the Ar- 
menians the city of Erzeroum, it is first of all neces- 



182 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

sary that they shall be able to enter and be able to 
remain there. Now since the Armenians have not 
shown, with a few exceptions, a great power of re- 
sistance, and are rather a race of merchants than 
soldiers, it would be necessary for others to under- 
take the charge of defending them. None of the 
European States desired a mandate for Armenia, 
and no one wished to assume the serious military 
burden of protecting the Armenians; the United 
States, after having in the message of Wilson backed 
a Greater Armenia, wished even less than the other 
states to interest themselves in it. 

Probably proposals of a more reasonable char- 
acter and marked by less aversion for the Turks 
would have permitted the Turks not only to recog- 
nize, which is not difficult for them, but in fact to 
respect, the new State of Armenia, without the 
dreams of a seacoast and the madness of Erzeroum. 

If the condition of the conquered is sufficiently 
serious, the situation of the peoples most favored by 
the Entente in Europe, Poland and Greece, is cer- 
tainly not less so. They have obtained the greatest 
and most unjust accessions in territory and for va- 
rious reasons have rendered very little service 
during the war. Each of these countries is suffocat- 
ing under the weight of the concessions, and seeks 
in vain a way of salvation from the burdens which 
it is not able to support, and from the mania of 
conquest which is the fruit of exaltation and error. 

Having obtained much, having obtained far more 
than they thought or hoped, they believe that their 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 183 

advantage lies in new expansion. Poland violates 
treaties, offends laws of international usage, and is 
protected in everything she undertakes. But every 
one of her undertakings can only throw her into 
greater discomfort and augment the total of ruin. 

All the violences in Upper Silesia to prevent the 
plebiscite going in favor of Germany were not only 
tolerated but prepared far ahead. 

"When I was head of the Italian Government the 
representative of the German Government in Rome, 
Von Herf, gave documentary evidence on what was 
being prepared, and on April 30, 1920, in an audience 
which I gave him as head of the council he furnished 
me with proofs of what the Polish organization was, 
what were its objects and the source of its funds. 

As every one knows, the plebiscite of March 20, 
1921, in spite of the violence and notwithstanding 
the officially protected brigandage, resulted favor- 
ably to Germany. Out of 1,200,636 voters 717,122 
were for Germany and 483,514 for Poland. The 
664 richest, most prosperous and most populous 
communes gave a majority for the Germans, 597 
communes gave a majority for Poland. The terri- 
tory of Upper Silesia, according to the treaty, 
according to the plebiscite, according to the most ele- 
mentary international honesty, should be imme- 
diately handed over to Germany. But as they do not 
wish to give the coal of Upper Silesia to Germany, 
and the big interests of the new great metallurgical 
group urge and intrigue, the Treaty of Versailles 
has here also become a scrap of paper. 



184 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Instead of accepting, as was the first duty, the 
result of the plebiscite, people have resorted to 
sopliism of incomparable weakness: Article 88 of 
the Treaty of Versailles says only that the inhabit- 
ants of Upper Silesia shall be called to designate by 
means of a plebiscite if they desire to be united to 
Germany or to Poland. 

It was necessary to find a sophism! 

The Addendum of Section 8 establishes how the 
operation of the vote shall be carried out and all 
the procedure of the elections. There are six articles 
of procedure. Paragraph 4 says that each one shall 
vote in the commune where he is domiciled or in 
that where he was born if he has not a domicile in 
the territory. The result of the vote shall be de- 
termined commune by commune, according to the 
majority of votes in each commune. 

This means then that the results of the voting, as 
is done in political questions in all countries, should 
be controlled commune by commune: it is the form 
of the vote which the appendix defines. Instead, 
in order to take the coal away from Germany, it 
was attempted, and is being still attempted, not to 
apply the treaty, but to violate the principle of the 
indivisibility of the territory and to give the min- 
ing districts to Poland. 

The plebiscite was not applied and because of the 
difference in opinion between France and Great 
Britain and because Italy's policy was uncertain it 
was thought best to consult the Council of the 
League of Nations. Why this should have been 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 185 

done after the plebiscite it is difficult to understand. 
The League of Nations has handed down a decision 
which is not only lacking in straightforwardness but 
which also reflects upon its moral seriousness. 

The violation of the neutrality of Belgium was 
not an offense to a treaty more serious than this 
attempt; the Treaty of 1839 can not be considered a 
scrap of paper any more than the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles. Only the roles of the parties are inverted. 

It is not France, noble and democratic, which 
inspires these movements, but a plutocratic situa- 
tion which has taken the same positions, but on 
worse grounds, than the German metallurgists be- 
fore the war. It is the same current against which 
Lloyd George has several times bitterly protested 
and for which he has had veiy bitter words which 
it is not necessary to recall. It is the same move- 
ment which has created agitations in Italy by means 
of its organs, and which attempts one thing only: to 
ruin the German industry and, having the control 
of the coal, to monopolize in Europe the iron indus- 
tries and those that are derived from it. 

First of all, in order to indemnify France for the 
temporary damages done to the mines in the north, 
there was the cession in perpetuo of the mines of the 
Saar; then there were the repeated attempts to oc- 
cupy the territory of the Ruhr to control the coal; 
last of all there is the wish not to apply the plebis- 
cite and to violate the Treaty of Versailles by not 
giving Upper Silesia to Germany, but giving it un- 
justly to Poland. 



186 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Germany produced before the war about 190,- 
000,000 tons of coal; in 1913, 191,500,000. The con- 
sumption of these mines themselves was about a 
tenth, 19,000,000 tons, while for exportation there 
Avere 33,500,000 tons, and for internal consumption 
there were 139,000,000. 

Now Germany has lost, and justly, Alsace-Lor- 
raine, 3,800,000 tons. She has lost, and it was not 
just, the Saar, 13,200,000 tons. She is bound by the 
obligations of the treaty to furnish France with 
20,000,000 tons, and to Belgium and Italy and 
France again another 25,000,000 tons. If she loses 
the excellent coal of Upper Silesia, about 43,800,000 
tons per year, she will be completely paralyzed. 

It is needless to lose time in demonstrating for 
what geographic, ethnographic and economic reason 
Upper Silesia should be united with Germany. It 
is a useless procedure, and also, after the plebis- 
cites, an insult to the reasoning powers. If the vio- 
lation of treaties is not a right of the victor, after 
the plebiscite, in which, notwithstanding all the vio- 
lences, three-quarters of the population voted for 
Germany, then there is no reason for discussion. 

The words used by Lloyd George on May 13, 1921, 
in the House of Commons, are a courteous attenua- 
tion of the truth. From the historical point of view, 
he said, Poland has no rights over Silesia. The only 
reason for which Poland could claim Upper Silesia 
is that it possesses a numerous Polish population, 
arrived there in comparatively recent times with the 
intention of finding work, and especially in the 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 187 

mines. That is true and is more serious than would 
be an agitation of the Italians in the State of San 
Paulo of Brazil, claiming that they had a majority 
of the population. 

''The Polish insurrection," said Lloyd George 
justly, ''is a challenge to the Treaty of Versailles, 
which, at the same time, constitutes the charter of 
Polish Liberty." Poland is the last country in 
Europe which has the right to deplore the treaty, 
because Poland did not achieve the treaty. Poland 
did not gain her liberty, and more than any other 
country should respect every comma of the treaty. 
She owes her liberty to Italy, Great Britain and 
France. 

In the future [said the English prime minister] force 
will lose its efficiency in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, 
and the maintenance of the undertakings on the part 
of Germany on the basis of her signature placed to the 
treaty will count increasingly. We have the right to 
everything which she gives us: but it is also our duty not 
to touch anything that it left to her. It is our duty to 
act with rigorous and impartial justice, without taking 
into account the advantages or the disadvantages which 
may accrue therefrom. Either the Allies must demand 
that the treaty shall be respected, or they should permit 
the Germans to make the Poles respect it. It is all very 
well to disarm Germany, but to desire that even the troops 
which she does possess should not participate in the rees- 
tablishment of order is a pure injustice. 

Russia to-day is a fallen Power, tired, a prey to a des- 
potism which leaves no hope, but is also a country of great 



188 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

natural resources, inhabited by a people of courage, who 
at the beginning of the war gave proof of its courage. 
Russia will not always find herself in the position in 
which she is to-day. Who can say what she will become? 
In a short time she may become a powerful country, which 
can say its word about the future of Europe and the 
world. To which part will she turn? With whom will 
she unite? 

There is nothing more just or more true than 
this. 

But Poland wants to take away Upper Silesia 
from Germany notwithstanding the plebiscite and 
against the treaty, and which has in this action the 
aid of the metallurgical interests and the great in- 
terests of a large portion of the Press of all Europe. 
Poland, which has large groups of German popula- 
tion, after having been enslaved, claims the right to 
enslave populations which are more cultured, richer 
and more advanced. And besides the Germans it 
claims the right to enslave even Russian peoples 
and further to occupy entire Russian territories, and 
wishes to extend into Ukraine. There is then the 
pohtical paradox of Vilna. This city, which belongs 
according to the regular treaty to Lithuania, has 
been occupied in an arbitrary manner by the Poles, 
who also claim Kovna. 

In short, Poland, which obtained her unity by a 
miracle, is working in the most feverish manner to 
create her own ruin. She has no finance, she has 
no administration, she has no credit. She does not 
work, and yet consumes; she occupies new terri- 



CONQUEROES AND CONQUERED 189 

tories, and ruins the old ones. Of the 31,000,000 
inhabitants, as we have seen 7,000,000 are Ukra- 
nians, 2.2 Russians, 2.1 Germans, and nearly half a 
million of other nationalities. But among the eight- 
een or nineteen million Poles there are at least 
four million Jews — Polish Jews, without doubt, but 
the greater portion do not love Poland, which has 
not known how to assimilate them. The Treaty of 
Versailles has created the absurd position that to go 
from one part to the other of Germany it is neces- 
sary to traverse the Danzig corridor. In other 
terms, Germany is cut in two parts, and to move in 
Prussia herself from Berlin to one of the oldest Ger- 
man cities, the home of Immanuel Kant, Konigsberg, 
it is necessary to traverse Polish territory unjustly 
occupied. 

Victory, after many sad vicissitudes and days of 
bitter doubt, smiled upon the Entente, especially 
through the intervention of the Anglo-Saxons, that 
is, the two great peoples outside of Continental 
Europe. 

Suppose that the plan of Germany had been real- 
ized and that she had been victorious. Germany 
and Austria have no outlet on the Mediterranean. 
What would we have thought if victorious Austria 
had demanded the port of Savona and a corridor to 
the sea? It would not have been any more immoral 
to turn over to Austria a zone of Italian territory 
from the Upper Adige to the Sea of Liguria than 
it was to constitute the State of Danzig and to dis- 
member Germany. Many honest Poles say that 



190 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Poland has no responsibility for this infamy which 
was committed by the Treaty of Versailles before 
Poland had achieved a life of its own. 

But this merely aggravates the situation since it 
shows the spirit of violence and the profound 
cynicism mth which certain great questions have 
been settled by peoples who declared they were 
united by the triumph of democracy and liberty. 

So Poland separates the two most numerous 
peoples of Europe: Russia and Germany. The 
Biblical legend lets us suppose that the waters of 
the Red Sea opened to let the Chosen People pass: 
but immediately afterward the waters closed up 
again. Is it possible to suppose that such an arbi- 
trary arrangement as this will last for long? 

If it has lasted as long as it has, it is because it 
was, at least from the part of one section of the En- 
tente, not the road to peace, but because it was a 
method of crushing Germany. 

If a people had conditions for developing rapidly 
it was Czecho-Slovakia. But also with the intention 
of hurting Germany and the German peoples, a 
Czecho-Slovak State was created which has its own 
tremendous crisis of nationality. A Czecho- 
slovakia with a population of eight to nine million 
people represented a compact ethnical unity. In- 
stead, they have added five and a half million people 
of different nationalities, among whom there are 
about four million Germans, with citieswhich are as 
German as any in the world, as Pilsen,', Karlsbad, 
Reichenberg, etc. What is even more serious is 
that the four million Germans are attached to Ger- 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 191 

many, and, having a superior culture and civiliza- 
tion, will never resign themselves to being placed 
under the Czechs. 

Czecho- Slovakia had mineral riches, industrial 
concerns and solid agriculture, and a culture spread 
among the people — all the conditions for rising 
rapidly. All these advantages risk being annulled 
by the grave and useless insult to the Germans and 
Magyars. 

Not only is the situation of Europe in every way 
uncertain, but there is a tendency in the groups of 
the victors on the Continent of Europe to increase 
the military budgets. The relationships of trade are 
being restored only slowly; commerce is spoken of 
as an aim. In Italy the dangers and perils of re- 
opening trade with Germany have been seriously 
discussed; customs duties are raised every day; the 
industrial groups find easy propaganda for protec- 
tion. Any limitation of competition is a duty, 
whether it be the enemy of yesterday or the enemy 
of to-day, and so the greatest evils of protection 
are camouflaged under patriotism. 

None of the countries which have come out of the 
war on the Continent has a financial position 
which helps toward a solid situation. All the finan- 
cial documents of the various countries, which I 
have collected and studied with great care, contain 
enormous masses of expenses which are the conse- 
quences of the war; those of the conquering coun- 
tries also contain enormous totals of expense which 
are or can become the cause of new wars. 

The conquered countries have not actually any 



192 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

finance. Germany has an increase of expenses 
which the fall of the mark renders more serious. 
In 1920 she spent not less than ninety-two billions, 
ruining her circulating medium. How much has she 
spent in 1921? 

Austria and Hungary have budgets which are 
simply guesses. The last Austrian budget, for 1921, 
assigned a sum of seventy-one billions of crowns for 
expenses, and this for a poor country with seven 
million inhabitants. 

A detailed examination of the financial situation 
of Czecho-Slovakia, of Rumania, and of the Jugo- 
slav States gives results w^hich are at the least 
alarming. Even Greece, which until yesterday had 
a solid structure, gallops now in a madness of ex- 
penditure which exceeds all her resources, and if 
she does not find a means to make peace mth Tur- 
key she will find her credit exhausted. The most 
ruinous of all is the situation of Poland, whose fi- 
nance is certainly not better regulated than that of 
the Bolsheviks of Moscow, to judge from the course 
of the Polish mark and the Russian rouble if any 
one is interested enough to buy them on an inter- 
national market. 

The rate of exchange since the war has not per- 
ceptibly improved even for the great countries, and 
it is extraordinarily worse for the other countries. 

In June, 1921, France had a circulation of about 
thirty-eight billion francs, Belgium six billion 
francs, Italy about eighteen billion; Great Britain, 
between state notes and Bank of England notes, 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 193 

had hardly £434,000,000 sterling. Actually, among 
the Continental countries surviving the war, Italy 
is the country which has made the greatest efforts 
not to augment the circulation but to increase the 
taxes; and this because she had no illusions of re- 
building her finance and her national economy on 
an enemy indemnity. 

But the conquered countries have so abused their 
circulation that they almost live on the thought of 
it — as, in fact, not a few of the conquering countries 
and those that are the result of the war, do. Ger- 
many has passed eighty-eight billions, and is rapidly 
approaching one hundred billions. Now, when one 
thinks that the United States, after so many loans 
and after all the expenses of the war, has only a 
circulation of $4,557,000,000, one understands what 
difficulty Germany has to produce, to live, and to 
refurnish herself with raw materials. 

Only Great Britain of all the countries in Europe 
that have issued from the war has had a courageous 
financial policy. Public opinion, instead of pushing 
Parliament to financial dissipation, has insisted on 
economy. If the situation created by the war has 
transformed also the English circulation into uncon- 
vertible paper money, this is merely a passing 
phase. If sterling loses almost a quarter of its 
value on the dollar — that is, on gold — seeing that 
the United States of America alone now have a 
money at par, this is also merely a transitory phase. 

Great Britain has the good sense to curtail ex- 
penses, and sterling tends continually to improve. 



194 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

France and Italy are in an intermediate position. 
Their money can be saved, but it will require ener- 
getic care and great economies, stern finance, a 
greater development of production, limitation of 
consumption, above all, of what is purchased from 
abroab. At the date of which I am writing, French 
currency stands toward sterling in the ratio of 
47:100 and toward the dollar 36:100. The Italian 
lira stands at a ratio of 28:100 to sterling and 21: 
100 toward the dollar. 

There are still two countries in which tenacious 
energy can save and with many sacrifices they can 
arrive at sound money. France has a good many 
more resources than Italy; she has a smaller need 
of imports and a greater facility for exports. But 
her public debt has reached two hundred sixty-five 
billions, the circulation has well passed thirty-eight 
billions, and they still fear to calculate among the 
extraordinary income of the budget the fifteen bil- 
lions a year which should come from Germany. 

Italy, mth great difficulty of production and less 
concord inside the country, has a truer vision, and 
does not reckon any income that is not derived from 
her own resources. Her circulation does not pass 
eighteen billions, and her debt exceeds by but little 
one hundred billions. 

With prudence and firmness France and Italy 
will be able to balance their accounts. 

But the financial situation and the exchanges of 
the conquered countries, even that of Germany, may 
be called desperate. 



CONQUEROKS AND CONQUERED 195 

If expressed in percentages, the German mark is 
worth 5.11 per cent, in comparison with the pound 
sterling and 3.98 per cent, of the dollar. What 
possibility is there of systematizing the exchange? 

Germany was compelled this year to carry her 
expenses to one hundred thirty billions of marks. 
As her circulation has exceeded eighty-eight bil- 
lions, how can she straighten out her money? 

As for the Austrian and Hungarian crowns, the 
Jugo-Slav crowns, the Rumanian lei, and all the 
other depreciated moneys, their fate is not doubtful. 
As their value is always descending, and the gold 
equivalent becomes almost indeterminable, they will 
have a common fate. As for the Polish mark, it can 
be said that before long it will not be worth the 
paper on which it is printed. 

There is, then, the fantastic position of the public 
debts! They have reached now such figures that 
no imagination could have forecasted. France alone 
has a debt which of itself exceeds by a great deal 
all the debts of all the European States previous to 
the war: 265 billions of francs. And Germany, the 
conquered country, has in her turn a debt which 
exceeds 320 billions of marks, and which is rapidly 
approaching 400 billions. The debts of many coun- 
tries can only be remembered, because there is no 
practical interest in knowing whether Austria, Hun- 
gary, and especially Poland, has one debt or 
another, since the situation of the creditors is not a 
situation of reality. 

The whole debt of the United States of America 



196 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

is, after so much war, only 23,982,000,000 dollars; 
but the United States are creditors of the Entente 
for 9,500,000,000 dollars. Also England, against a 
debt of £9,240,000,000 sterling, has a credit of 
£1,778,000,000. 

These serious figures which we have cited explain 
the situation of unrest which has become more acute 
through the scarcity of commercial exchanges. They 
indicate also that internal peace is more necessary 
in every country than anything else. "We must 
produce more, consume less, put the finances in 
order, and reestablish credit. Instead, the con- 
quered countries are going downward every day and 
the conquering countries are maintaining very big 
armies, exhausting their resources, while they are 
spreading the conviction that the indemnity from the 
enemy will compensate sufficiently, or at least 
partly, for the work of restoration. 

In fact, the causes of discontent and distrust are 
augmenting. Nothing is more significant than the 
lack of conscience with which programs of violence 
and of ruin are lightly accepted; nothing is more 
deplorable than the thoughtlessness with which the 
germs of new wars are cultivated. Germany has 
disarmed with a swiftness that has even astonished 
the military circles of the Entente; but the bitter 
results of the struggle are not only not finished 
against Germany, not even to-day does she form 
part of the League of Nations (which is rather a 
sign of a state of mind than an advantage), but the 
attitude toward her is even more hostile. 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 197 

Two years after the end of the war R. Poincare 
wrote that the League of Nations would lose its 
best possibility of lasting if, un jour, it did not re- 
unite all the nations of Europe. But he added that 
of all the conquered nations — Austria, Hungary, 
Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany — the last-men- 
tioned, by her conduct during the war and after the 
peace, justified least a near right of entry. It would 
be incontestahlement plus naturel (with how many 
things does nature occupy herself!) to let Austria 
enter first if she will disavow the policy of reattach- 
ment — that is, being purely German, to renounce, 
even though she can not live alone, union with Ger- 
many, and this contrary to the principle of national- 
ity, and in spite of the principle of self-determina- 
tion. Bulgaria and Turkey may join the League 
provided they maintain a loyal and courteous atti- 
tude toward Greece, Rumania and Serbia. The turn 
of Germany will come, but only after Turkey, when 
she will have given proof of executing the treaty, 
which no reasonable and honest person considers 
it possible for her to carry out in its entirety. 

The most characteristic facts of this peace which 
continues the war can be recapitulated as follows : 

1. Europe on the whole has more men under 
arms than before the war. The conquered states 
are forced to disarm, but the conquering states have 
increased their armaments; the new states and the 
countries which have been created by the war have 
also increased their armaments. 

2. Production is very tardily being taken up 



198 THE WRECK OP EUROPE 

again because there is everywhere, if in a different 
degree, a lesser desire for work on the part of the 
working classes joined with a need for higher re- 
muneration. 

3. The difficulties of trade, instead of decreas- 
ing in many countries of Europe, are increasing, and 
international commerce is very slowly recovering. 
Between the states of Europe there is no real com- 
merce which can compare with that under normal 
conditions. Considering actual values with values 
before the war, the products which now form the 
substance of trade between European countries do 
not represent even the half of that before the war. 

As the desire for consumption, if not the capacity 
for consumption, has greatly increased, and the pro- 
duction is greatly decreased, all the states have in- 
creased their functions. So the depreciation of the 
paper money and the treasury bills which permit 
these heavy expenses is in all the countries of 
Europe, even if in different degrees, very great. 

The conquering countries, from the moment that 
they had obtained in the treaties of peace the 
acknowledgment of the conquered that the war was 
caused by them, held it to be legitimate that they 
should lose all their available goods, their colonies, 
their ships, their credits and their commercial or- 
ganization abroad, but that the conquered should 
also pay all the damages of the war. The war, there- 
fore, should be paid for by the conquered, who 
recognized (even if against their will) that they 
were alone responsible. That forms henceforth a 



CONQUERORS AND CONQUERED 199 

certain canon of foreign policy, the less true a thing 
appear the more it is repeated. 

Although the treaties oblige Austria, Hungary, 
Bulgaria and Turkey to pay the damages of the war, 
it is, however, certain thax they are not able to pay 
anything and not even the expenses of the victors on 
their territory. ''Cantahit vacuus coram latrone 
viator," said Juvenal (''Who has nothing can give 
nothing"), and Austria, for her part, instead of 
giving is asking for help to feed herself. 

So the problem remains limited to Germany. Can 
she pay the indemnity indicated in the treaty? Can 
she pay for the damages and indemnify the victors'? 
After having given up her colonies, her ships, her 
railway material, all her available credits abroad, in 
what form can she pay? 

The fundamental controversy reduces itself 
henceforth only to this point, which we shall try if 
possible to make clear, since we desire that this mat- 
ter shall be presented in the clearest and most evi- 
dent form. 

From now on it is not the chancelleries which 
must impose the solutions of these problems; but 
it is the mass of the public in Europe and America. 



THE IITDEMNITY FROM THE DEFEATED ENEMY AND THE 
ANXIETIES OF THE VICTORS 

We have seen the process by which the idea of the 
indemnity for damages, which was not contained 
either in the peace declaration of the Entente, nor 
in the manifestations of the various parliaments, 
nor in the first armistice proposals, nor in the 
armistice between Italy and Austria, was intro- 
duced in the armistice with Germany, out of pure 
regard for France, without taking heed of the conse- 
quences. Three words, said Clemenceau, only three 
words need be added, words which compromise 
nothing and are an act of deference to France. The 
entire construction of the treaties, after all, is based 
on those three words. 

And how fantastic the demands for compensation 
have become! 

An old Italian proverb says, *'In time of war 
there are more lies than earth." Ancient and mod- 
ern pottery reproduce the motto, which is wide- 
spread, and whose truth was not understood until 
some years ago. So many foolish things were said 
about the almost mysterious maneuvers of Ger- 

200 



THE INDEMNITY 201 

many, about her vast expansion, her great resources 
and accumulated capital, that the reality tended to 
become lost to sight. 

These absurd legends, formed during the war, 
were not forgotten, and there are even now many 
who believe in good faith that Germany can pay, if 
not twenty or twenty-five billions a year, at least 
nine or ten without any difficulty. 

France's shrewdest politicians, however, well 
knew that the demand for an enormous and unlim- 
ited indemnity was only a means of putting Ger- 
many under control and of forcing her down to the 
point of exhaustion. But the others maintained 
this proposal more out of rancor and hatred than 
from any actual political concept. It may be said 
that the problem of the indemnity has never been 
seriously studied and that the calculations, the val- 
uations, the procedures, have all formed a series of 
impulsive acts coordinated by a single error, the 
error of the French politicians who had the one aim 
of holding Germany down. 

The procedure was simple. 

In the first phase the indemnities came into being 
from three words inserted almost by chance into the 
armistice treaty on November 2, 1918, reparations 
for damages. It was merely a matter of a simple 
expression to satisfy public feeling. **I beg the 
council to put itself into the state of mind of the 
French population." {Je supplie le conseil de se 
mettre dans V esprit de la population frangaise.) . . . 
It was a moral concession, a moral satisfaction. 



202 THE WRECK OP EUROPE 

But afterward, as things went on, all was altered 
when it came to preparing the treaties. 

For a while the idea, not only of a reparation of 
damages, but of the payment of the cost of the war 
was entertained. It was maintained that the prac- 
tise of making the vanquished reimburse the cost of 
the war was permitted by international law. Since 
Germany had provoked the war and lost it, she must 
not only furnish an indemnity for the losses, but 
also pay the cost. 

The cost was calculated roughly at seven hundred 
billions of francs at par. Further, there was the 
damage to assess. In the aggregate, war costs, dam- 
age to property, damage to persons, came to at 
least one thousand billions. But since it was im- 
possible to demand immediate payment and was 
necessary to spread the sum over fifty years, taking 
into consideration sinking funds and interest the 
total came to three thousand billions. The amount 
was published by the illustrated papers with the 
usual diagrams, drawings of golden globes, length of 
paper money if stretched out, height of metal if all 
piled up together, etc., etc. 

These figures were discussed for the first few 
months by a public accustomed to be surprised at 
nothing. They merely helped to demonstrate that 
an indemnity of three hundred and fifty billions 
was a real sacrifice for the Allies. 

Thus a whole series of principles came to be es- 
tablished which were a contradiction of reality. 

A great share in the responsibility in this matter 



THE INDEMNITY 203 

lies with Great Britain, who not only followed 
France's error, but in certain ways made it worse 
by a number of intemperate requests. Italy had no 
influence on the proceedings owing to her indecisive 
policy. Only the United States, notwithstanding the 
banality of some of her exports {lucus a non lucen- 
do), spoke an occasional word of reason. 

When Lloyd George understood the mistake 
committed in the matter of the indemnity it was 
too late. 

^The English public found itself face to face with 
the elections almost the day after the conclusion of 
the war. In the existing state of exaltation and 
hatred the candidates found a convenient ''plank" 
in promising the extermination of Germany, the 
trial of the kaiser, as well as of thousands of Ger- 
man officers accused of cruelty, and last, but not 
least, the end of German competition. 

The prime minister of Australia, William Morris 
Hughes, a small-minded, insensitive, violent man, 
directed a furious campaign in favor of a huge 
indemnity. Lord Northcliffe lent the aid of his 
numerous papers to this campaign, which stirred up 
the electors. 

Lloyd George, with his admirable intelligence, 
perceived the situation clearly. He did not believe 
in the usefulness or even in the possibility of trying 
the kaiser and the German officers. He did not be- 
lieve in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or 
even a veiy large one. 

His first statements, like those of Bonar Law, a 



204 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

serious, honest, well-balanced man, an idealist with 
the appearance of a practical person, revealed noth- 
ing. On the eve of the dissolution of Parliament, 
Lloyd George, speaking at Wolverhampton, No- 
vember 24, 1918, did not even hint at the question 
of the reparations or indemnity. He was impelled 
along that track by the movement coming from 
France, by the behavior of the candidates, by 
Hughes's attitude, and by the Press generally, es- 
pecially that of Northcliffe. 

A most vulgar spectacle was offered by many of 
the English candidates, among whom were several 
members of the War Cabinet, who used language 
worthy of raving dervishes before crowds hypno- 
tized by promises of the most impossible things. 

To promise the electors that Germany should pay 
the cost of the war, to announce to those who had 
lost their sons that the kaiser was to be hanged, to 
promise the arrest and punishment of the most 
guilty German officers, to prophesy the reduction 
to slavery of a Germany competing on sea and land, 
was certainly the easiest kind of electoral program. 
The numerous war-mutilated accepted it with much 
enthusiasm, and the people listened, open-mouthed, 
to the endless series of promises. 

Hughes, who was at bottom in good faith, de- 
veloped the thesis which he afterward upheld at 
Paris with logical precision. It was Germany's 
duty to reimburse, Avithout any limitation, the entire 
cost of the war : damage to property, damage to per- 
sons, and war-cost. He who has committed the 



THE INDEMNITY 205 

wrong must make reparation for it to the extreme 
limits of his resources, and this principle, recog- 
nized by the jurists, requires that the total of the 
whole cost of the war fall upon the enemy nations. 
Later on, Hughes, who was a sincere man, recog- 
nized that it was not possible to go beyond asking 
for reparation of the damages. 

Lloyd George was dragged along by the necessity 
of not drawing away the mass of the electors from 
the candidates of his party. Thus he was obliged 
on December 11, in his final manifesto, to announce 
not only the kaiser's trial and that of all those re- 
sponsible for atrocities, but to promise the most 
extensive kind of indemnity from Germany and the 
compensation of all who had suffered by the war. 
Speaking the same evening at Bristol, he promised 
to uphold the principle of the indemnity, and as- 
serted the absolute right to demand from Germany 
payment for the costs of the war. 

In England, where the illusion soon passed away, 
in France, where it has not yet been dissipated, the 
public has been allowed to believe that Germany can 
pay the greater part, if not the entire cost of the 
war, or at least make compensation for the damage. 

For many years I have studied the figures in 
relation to private wealth and the wealth of nations, 
and I have written at length on the subject. I know 
how difficult it is to obtain by means of even ap- 
proximate statistics results more or less near to the 
reality. Nothing pained me more than to hear the 
facility with which politicians of repute spoke of 



206 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

obtaining an indemnity of hundreds of billions. 
When Germany expressed her desire to pay an in- 
demnity in one agreed lump sum {a forfait) of one 
hundred billions of gold marks (an indemnity she 
could never pay, so enormous is it), I saw states- 
men, whom I imagined not deprived of intelligence, 
smile at the paltriness of the offer. An indemnity 
of fifty billions of gold marks, such as that proposed 
by Keynes, appeared absurd in its smallness. 

"When the Peace Conference reassembled in Paris 
the situation concerning the indemnity was as fol- 
lows. The Entente had never during the war spoken 
of indemnity as a condition of peace. Wilson, in 
his proposals, had spoken only of reconstruction of 
invaded territories. The request for reparations for 
damages had been included in the terms of the 
armistice merely to afford a moral satisfaction to 
France. But the campaign waged in France and 
during the elections in England had exaggerated the 
demands so as to include not only reparation for 
damage but reimbursement of the cost of the war. 

Only the United States maintained that the in- 
demnity should be limited to the reparation of the 
damages: a reparation which in later phases in- 
cluded not only reconstruction of destroyed terri- 
tories and damage done to private property, but 
even pensions to the families of those killed in the 
war and the sums in grant paid during it. 

When Prussia conquered France in 1870, she 
asked for an indemnity of five billion. The Entente 
could have demanded from the vanquished an in- 



THE INDEMNITY 207 

demnity and then have reassmned relations with 
them provided it were an indemnity that they could 
pay in a brief period of time. 

Instead, it being impossible to demand an enor- 
mous sum of three hundred or four hundred billions, 
a difficult figure to fix definitely, recourse was had 
to another expedient. 

From the moment that the phrase reparation for 
damages was included in the armistice treaty as a 
claim that could be urged, it became impossible to 
ask for a fixed sum. What was to be asked for was 
neither more nor less than the amount of the dam- 
ages. Hence a special commission was required, 
and the Reparations Commission appears on the 
scene to decide the sum to demand from Germany 
and to control its payment. Also even after Ger- 
many was disarmed a portion of her territory must 
remain in the Allies' hands as a guarantee for the 
execution of the treaty. 

The reason why France has always been opposed 
to a rapid conclusion of the indemnity question is 
that she may continue to have the right, in view of 
the question remaining still open, to occupy the left 
bank of the Rhine and to keep the bridgeheads indi- 
cated in the treaty. 

The thesis supported by Clemenceau at the Con- 
ference was a simple one : Germany must recognize 
the total amount of her debt; it is not enough to 
say that we recognize it. 

I demand in the name of the French Government, and 



208 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

after having consulted my colleagues, that the Peace Treaty 
fix Germany's debt to us and indicate the nature of the 
damages for which reparation is due. We will fix a 
period of thirty years if you so wish it, and we will give 
to the Commission, after it has reduced the debt to figures, 
the mandate to make Germany pay within these thirty 
years all she owes us. If the whole debt can not be paid in 
thirty years the Commission will have the right to extend 
the time for payment. 

This scheme was agreed upon. And the thesis of 
the compensation of damages, instead of that for 
the payment of the cost of the war, prevailed for a 
very simple reason. If they proposed to demand 
for all integral reparations, and therefore the reim- 
bursement of the cost of the war, the figures would 
have been enormous. It became necessary to reduce 
all the credits proportionally, as in the case of a 
bankruptcy. Now, since in the matter of the in- 
demnities France occupied the first place (to begin 
with, she asked sixty-five per cent, of all sums paid 
by Germany), she took the greater part of the in- 
dencmities, while on the sums paid for reimburse- 
ment of cost of war, she would only have got less 
than twenty per cent. 

Germany has therefore been put under control 
for all the time she will be paying the indemnities — 
that is, for an indefinite period. 

The valuation of the expenses for the reconstruc- 
tion of the ruined territories had to be carried out 
according to the regulations of the treaty, and, the 
prices having increased, the French Government 



THE INDEMNITY 209 

presented in July, 1920, a first approximate valua- 
tion: damages, one hundred and fifty- two billions; 
pensions, fifty-eight billions ; in all, two hundred and 
ten billions. In November, 1920, the damages had 
increased to two hundred and eighteen billions. 

Even these figures represent something less 
absurd than the first demands and figures. 

On September 5, 1919, the French minister of 
finance, speaking in the French Chamber, calculated 
the total of the German indemnities arising from the 
treaty at three hundred and seventy-five billions, 
whose interest would accumulate until 1921, after 
which date Germany would begin to pay her debt 
in thirty-four annual rates of about twenty-five bil- 
lions each, and thirteen thousand seven hundred 
and fifty billions a year would go to France. 

Again, in November, 1920, Ogier, minister of the 
liberated regions, put before the Reparations Com- 
mission in the name of France a detailed memorial 
which made the value of the territories to be recon- 
structed only for the cases of private individuals 
come to one hundred and forty billions, not includ- 
ing the pensions, damage to railways and merchant 
marine, which totaled two hundred and eighteen bil- 
lions, of which seventy-seven billions were for pen- 
sions and one hundred and forty-one billions for 
damages. 

Of late the sense of reality has begun to diffuse 
itself. The Minister Loucheur himself has laughed 
at the earlier figures, and has stated that the dam- 
ages do not exceed eighty billions. 



210 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

But the French public has been accustomed for 
some time to take the figures of Klotz seriously, and 
to discuss indemnities of one hundred and fifty, 
two hundred and two hundred and fifty billions. 
The public, however, is not yet aware of the real 
position, and will not be able to arrive at a just 
realization of it without passing through a serious 
moral crisis which will be the first secure element 
of the real peace. 

Setting aside all questions of indemnities from 
Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria (they have 
nothing to give, can give nothing; on the contrary, 
they ask and merit assistance), it is clear that all 
the indemnities must be paid by Germany. 

The French totals of the material damage claims 
in the invaded districts have been absolutely fan- 
tastic and more exaggerated than in the case of 
Belgium, whose indemnity claims would lead one to 
suppose the total destruction of at least the third 
part of her territory, almost as if she had undergone 
the submersion of, say, ten thousand square meters 
of her small territory. 

This problem of the indemnities, limited to the 
reparation of damages, and in accordance with the 
costs contemplated in the Treaty of Versailles, has 
never been seriously tackled. One may even say it 
has not been seriously examined. And it is deplor- 
able that there has been created among the public, 
or among a large part of it, the conviction that 
Germany will repair the damage of the war by her 
own effort. This idea, however, finds no acceptance 



THE INDEMNITY 211 

in England among serious persons, and in Italy no 
one believes in it. But in France and Belgium the 
idea is widely diffused, and the wish to spread the 
belief is lively in several sections of opinion, not 
because intelligent people believe in the possibility 
of effective payment, but with the idea of putting 
Germany in the light of not maintaining the clauses 
of the peace, thus extending the right to prolong the 
military occupation and even to aggravate it. Ger- 
many, thereby, is kept out of the League of Nations 
and her dissolution facilitated. The exaggerated il- 
lusions created in France by the conduct of the gov- 
ernment and by the work of the Press have brought 
about an irremediable situation. In France no plan 
for the indemnity which is practicable for Germany 
is politically acceptable. 

John MajTiard Keynes, ever since the end of 1919, 
has shown in his admirable book the absurdity of 
asking for vast indemnities, Germany's impossibil- 
ity of pajdng them, and the risk for all Europe of 
following a road leading to ruin, thus at the same 
time accentuating the work of disintegration started 
by the treaty. That book had awakened a far-reach- 
ing effect, but it ought to have had a still wider one, 
and would have had it but for the fact that, unfor- 
tunately, the Press in free countries is anything but 
free. 

The great industrial syndicates, especially in the 
steel-making industry, which control so large a part 
of the Press among the majority of the states of 
Europe, and even beyond Europe, find easy allies 



212 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

in the inadequate preparation of the major part of 
the journalists to discuss the most important prob- 
lems, and the indisposition on the part of the public 
to examine those questions which present difficul- 
ties, and are so rendered less convenient for dis- 
cussion. 

I knew Keynes during the war, when he was at- 
tached to the British Treasury and chief of the de- 
partment charged to look after the foreign ex- 
changes and the financial relations between Great 
Britain and her Allies. A serious writer, a teacher 
of economics of great value, he brought to his diffi- 
cult task a scrupulousness and an exactness that bor- 
dered on mistrust. As I was at that time minister 
of the Treasury in Italy, in the bitterest and most 
decisive period of the war, I had frequent contact 
with Mr. Keynes, and I always admired his exact- 
ness and his precision. I could not always find it 
in myself to praise his friendly spirit. But he had 
an almost mystic force of severity, and those enor- 
mous squanderings of wealth, that facile assumption 
of liabilities that characterized this period of the 
war, must have doubtless produced in him a sense 
of infinite disgust. This state of mind often made 
him very exacting, and sometimes unjustifiably sus- 
picious. His word had a decisive effect on the ac- 
tions of the English Treasury. 

When the war was finished, he took part as first 
delegate of the English Treasury at the Peace Con- 
ference of Paris, and was substituted by the chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer in the Supreme Economic 



THE INDEMNITY 213 

Council. He quitted his office when he had come 
to the conclusion that it was hopeless to look for any 
fundamental change of the peace treaties. 

His book is not only a document of political up- 
rightness but the first appeal to a sense of reality 
which, after an orgy of mistakes, menaces a succes- 
sion of catastrophes. In my opinion it merits a 
serious reconsideration as the expression of a new 
conscience, as well as an expression of the truth, 
which is only disguised by the existing state of exas- 
peration and violence. 

After two years we must recognize that all the 
forecasts of Keynes have been borne out by the 
facts: that the exchange question has grown worse 
in all the countries which have been in the war, that 
the absurd indemnities imposed on the enemies can 
not be paid, that the depressed condition of the van- 
quished is harmful to the victors almost in equal 
measure with the vanquished themselves, that it 
menaces their very existence, that, in fine, the sense 
of dissolution is more wide-spread than ever. 

The moment has come to make an objective exam- 
ination of the indemnity question, and to discuss it 
without any hesitation. 

Let us lay aside all sentiment and forget the un- 
dertakings of the peace treaties. Let us suppose that 
the Entente's declarations and Wilson's proposals 
never happened. Let us imagine that we are exam- 
ining a simple commercial proposition stripped of 
all sentiment and moral ideas. 

After a great war it is useless to invoke moral 



214 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

sentiments: men, while they are blinded by hatred, 
recognize nothing save their passion. It is the na- 
ture of war not only to kill or ruin a great number 
of men, not only to cause considerable material dam- 
age, but also, necessarily, to bring about states of 
mind full of hate which can not be ended at once and 
which are even refractory to the language of reason. 

For a long time I myself have looked upon the 
Germans with the profoundest hatred. When I 
think of all the persons of my race dead in the war, 
when I look back upon the fifteen months of anguish 
when my first-bom son was a prisoner of war in 
Germany, I am quite able to understand the state 
of mind of those who made the peace and the mental 
condition in which it was made. What determined 
the atmosphere of the peace treaties was the fact 
that there was a conference presided over by Cle- 
menceau, who remembered the Prussians in the 
streets of Paris after the War of 1870, who desired 
but on thing: the extermination of the Germans. 
What created this atmosphere, or helped to create 
it, was the action of Marshal Foch, who had lost in 
the war the two persons dearest to him in life, the 
persons who attached him to existence. 

But now we must examine the question not in the 
light of our sentiments or even of our hatreds. We 
must see quite calmly if the treaties are possible of 
application without causing the ruin of the van- 
quished. Then we must ask ourselves if the ruin of 
the vanquished does not bring in its train the ruin 
of the victors. Putting aside, then, all moral con- 



THE INDEMNITY 215 

siderations, let us examine and value the economic 
facts. 

There is no question that the reparation problem 
exists solely in the case of Germany, who has still a 
powerful statal framework which allows her to 
maintain great efforts, capable not only of provid- 
ing her with the means of subsistence, but also of 
paying a large indemnity to the victors. The other 
vanquished states are more in need of succor than 
anything else. 

What are the reparations? 

Let us follow the resume of them which a repre- 
sentative of France made at the signing of the 
Treaty of Versailles. They are as follows : 

1. Germany is responsible for the total of the losses 
and damages sustained by her victors inasmuch as she 
caused them. 

2. Germany, in consideration of the permanent diminu- 
tion of her resources, resulting from the Peace Treaty, is 
only obliged (but is obliged without restrictions or reserva- 
tions) to make payment for the direct damages and the 
pensions as set forth in Schedule I of Clause vni of the 
treaty. 

3. Germany must pay before May 1, 1921, not less than 
twenty billion gold marks or make equivalent payment in 
kind. 

4. On May 1 the Reparations Commission will fix the 
total amount of the German debt. 

5. This debt must be liquidated by annual payments 
whose totals are to be fixed annually by the Commission. 

6. The payments will continue for a period of thirty 
years, or longer if by that time the debt is not extinguished. 



216 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

7. Germany, will issue one hundred billion of gold 
marks of bearer bonds, and afterward all such issues as 
the Eeparations Commission shall demand, until the 
amount of the debt be reached in order to permit the stabili- 
zation of credit. 

8. The payments will be made in money and in kind. 
The payments in kind will be made in coal, live stock, 
chemical products, ships, machines, furniture, etc. The 
payments in specie consist of coin, of Germany's credits, 
public and private, abroad, and of a first charge on all 
the effects and resources of the Empire and the German 
States. 

9. The Reparations Commission, charged with seeing 
to the execution of this clause, shall have powers of con- 
trol and decision. It will be a commission for Germany's 
debt with wider powers. Called upon to decide, according 
to equity, justice and good faith, without being bound by 
any codex or special legislation, it has obtained from 
Germany an irrevocable recognition of its authority. Its 
duty is to supervise until the extinction of the debt, Ger- 
many's situation, her financial operations, her effects, her 
capacity for production, her provisioning, her production. 
This commission must decide what Germany can pay each 
year, and must see that her payments, added to the budget, 
fall upon her taxpayers at least to the extent of the allied 
country most heavily taxed. Its decisions shall be carried 
out immediately and receive immediate application, with- 
out any other formality. The commission can effect all 
the changes deemed necessary in the German laws and regu- 
lations, as well as all the sanctions, whether of a financial, 
economic or military nature arising from established vio- 
lations of the clauses put under its control. And Germany 
is obliged not to consider these ** sanctions" as hostile acts. 



THE INDEMNITY 217 

In order to guarantee the payments an Inter-Allied 
Army — in reality a Franco-Belgian Army — occupies 
the left bank of the Rhine, and is stationed at the 
bridgeheads. Germany is completely helpless, and 
has lost all the features of a sovereign state inas- 
much as she is subject to ** controls" in a way that 
Turkey never was. In modern history we can find 
no parallel for this state of things. These are con- 
ditions which alter the very basis of civilization and 
the relations between peoples. Such procedure has 
been unknown in Europe for centuries. The public 
has become accustomed in certain countries to con- 
sider responsible for the war not the government 
that wished it or the German people, but the future 
generations. Thus the indemnities are to be paid — • 
were such conditions possible — in thirty years and 
for at least twenty years afterward by people still 
unborn at the time of the war. This cursing of the 
guilty people has no parallel in modern history. 
We must go back to the early ages of humanity to 
find anything of the kind. 

But even the most inhuman policies, such as Ger- 
many has never adopted in her victories, although 
she has been accused of every cruelty, can find at 
least some justification if they had a useful effect 
on the countries which have wished and accept re- 
sponsibility for them. The conqueror has his rights. 
Julius Caesar killed millions of Germans and re- 
tarded perhaps for some centuries the invasion of 
Rome. But the practises established by the Treaty 
of Versailles are in effect equally harmful to victors 



218 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

and vanquished, though maybe in unequal measure, 
and in any case prepare the dissolution of Europe. 

I had my share in arranging at San Remo the 
Spa Conference, in the hope and \vith the desire of 
discussing frankly with the Germans what sum they 
could pay by way of indemnity without upsetting 
their economy and damaging severely that of the 
Allies. But the ministerial crisis that took place in 
June, 1920, prevented me from participating at the 
Spa Conference; and the profitable action which 
Great Britain had agreed to initiate in the common 
interest, ours as well as France's, could not be car- 
ried through. The old mistakes continued to be re- 
peated, though many attenuations have come about 
and the truth begins to appear even for those most 
responsible for past errors. 

We shall have to examine with all fair-minded- 
ness whether Germany is in a position to pay in 
whole or in part the indemnity established or rather 
resulting from the treaty. France especially be- 
lieves, or has said on several occasions she believes, 
that Germany can pay without difficulty three hun- 
dred and fifty billions. 

After many stupidities and many exaggerations 
which have helped considerably to confuse the pub- 
lic, confronted by the new difficulties which have 
arisen, new arrangements for the payment of the 
indemnity have been established. On May 11, in 
view of the situation which had arisen, the Allies 
proposed and Germany accepted a fresh scheme for 
the payment of the reparations. Germany is con- 



THE INDEMNITY 219 

strained to pay every year in cash and in kind the 
equivalent of five hundred million dollars, plus 
twenty-six per cent, of the total of her exports. 

The rest of the agreement refers to the procedure 
for the issue of bonds guaranteed on the indicated 
payments, to the constitution of a guarantee com- 
mittee, and to the date of payment. Probably Ger- 
many mil have been able to get through the year 
1921 without insurmountable difficulties. 

At Spa, on April 27, 1921, the proportionate sums 
assessed for each of the conquering powers were 
established on a total indemnity notably reduced in 
comparison with the earlier absurd demands. 

The Conference of Brussels (December 16 to 22, 
1920), the decisions of Paris (January 24 to 30, 
1921), the first conference (March 1 to 7, 1921) and 
the second conference of London (April 29 to May 5, 
1921) have successively modified the earlier de- 
mands. They constitute so many approximations to 
the unrecognized truth the open admission of which 
is prevented by the French Government. 

But putting aside the idea of an indemnity of 
two hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty, or 
even one hundred billions of gold marks, it will be 
well to examine in a concrete form what Germany 
can be made to pay, and whether the useless and 
elaborate structure of the Eeparations Commission 
with its powers of regulating the internal life of 
Germany for thirty years or more, ought not to be 
discontinued for a simpler plan more in sympathy 
with civilized notions. 



220 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Shortly before the war, according to successive 
statistics, the private wealt. of France did not 
amount to more than two hundred and fifty billions. 
The wealth of France, according to successive val- 
uations, was calculated at two hundred and eight 
billion francs in 1905 (De Foville), at two hundred 
and fourteen billions in 1908 (Turquan), and at 
about two hundred and fifty billions according to 
other authors. The wealth of Belgium, according to 
official statistics published by the Belgian Ministry 
of Finance in 1913, amounted to rather less than 
thirty billion francs. The estimate is perhaps a 
trifle low. But this official figure must not be con- 
sidered as being a long way from the truth. At cer- 
tain moments Belgium's demands have surpassed 
even the total of her national wealth, while the dam- 
ages have not been more than some billions. 

The value of the land in France was calculated 
before the war at between sixty-two and seventy- 
eight billions ; the value of the buildings, according 
to VAnnuaire Statistique de la France, at fifty- 
nine and one-half billions. The territory occupied 
by the Germans is not more than a tenth of the 
national territory. Even taking into consideration 
the loss of industrial buildings it is very difficult to 
arrive at the figure of fifteen billions. At the same 
time it is true that the Minister Loucheur declared 
on February 17, 1919, in the French Chamber that 
the reconstruction of the devastated regions in 
France required seventy-five billions — that is, very 
much more than double the private wealth of all the 
inhabitants of all the occupied regions. 



THE INDEMNITY 221 

In all the demands for compensation of the 
various states we have seen not so much a real and 
precise estimate of the damages (which is impos- 
sible) as a kind of fixing of credit in the largest 
measure possible in order that in the successive 
reductions each state should still have proportion- 
ally an advantageous share. 

Making his calculation with a generosity which I 
assert to be excessive (and I assert this as a result 
of an accurate study of the question, which perhaps 
I may have occasion to publish), Keynes maintains 
that the damages for which Germany should be 
made to pay come to fifty-three billions for all losses 
on land and sea and for the effects of aerial bom- 
bardments — fifty-three billions of francs all told, 
including the damages of France, Great Britain, 
Italy, Belgium, Serbia, etc.! I do not believe that 
the damages reach forty billions of gold marks, un- 
less, of course, we calculate in them the pensions 
and allowances. 

But these figures have but small interest, since 
the demands have been almost entirely purely 
arbitrary. 

"What we must see is whether Germany can pay, 
and whether, with a regime of restrictions and vio- 
lence, she can hand over, not the many billions which 
have been announced and which have been a deplor- 
able speculation on the ignorance of the public, but 
a considerable sum, such as is that which many 
folk still delude themselves it is possible to have. 

Germany has already turned over all her trans- 
ferable wealth; the gold in her banks, her colonies, 



222 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

her commercial fleet, a large and even the best part 
of her railway material, her submarine cables, her 
foreign credits, the property of her private citizens 
in the victorious countries, etc. Everything that 
could be handed over, even in opposition to the 
rights of nations as such are known in modern civil- 
ized states, Germany has given. She has also 
mortgaged all her national goods. "What can she 
give now? 

Germany can pay in three ways only : 

1. Merchandise and food products on account of 
the indemnity: coal, machines, chemical products, 
etc. 

2. Credits abroad coming from the sale of mer- 
chandise. If Germany exports, that is sells eight 
billion marks' worth of goods abroad, she pays two 
billions to the Reparations Commission. 

3. Property of private citizens. Germany can 
enslave herself, ceding the property of her private 
citizens to foreign states or citizens to be disposed 
of as they wish. 

Excluding this last form, which would constitute 
slavery pure and simple, as useless, as impossible, 
and calculated to parallel the methods in use among 
barbarous peoples, there only remain the first two 
methods of payment which we will examine briefly. 
But this latter form is only partly applied because 
of the ruin of exchange. Outsiders are buying at 
low prices German enterprises or partnerships in 
Germany. 

It must be remembered that Germany, even before 



THE INDEMNITY 223 

the war, was in difficulties for insufficient avenues 
of development, considering the restricted nature of 
her territory and the density of her population. 
Her territory, smaller than that of France and 
much less fertile, must now feed a population which 
stands to that of France as three to two. 

If we have had gigantic war losses, Germany, 
who fought on all the fronts, has had losses certainly 
not inferior to ours. She too has had, in larger or 
smaller proportion, her dead and her mutilated. 
She has known the most atrocious sufferings from 
hunger. Thus her productive power is much di- 
minished, not only on account of the grave diffi- 
culties in which her people find themselves (and the 
development of tuberculosis is a terrible index), but 
also for the lowered productive capacity of her 
working classes. 

The statistics published by the Office of Public 
Health of the Empire (Reiclisgesundheitsamt) and 
those given in England by Professor Starling and 
laid before the British Parliament, leave no doubt 
in the matter. 

Germany has had more than one million eight 
hundred thousand killed and many more than four 
million wounded. She has her mass of orphans, 
widows and invalids. Taken altogether the struc- 
ture of her people has become much worse. 

What constituted the great productive force of 
the German people was not only its capacity to 
work, but the industrial organization which she had 
created with fifty years of effort at home and 



224 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

abroad with many sacrifices. Now Germany has 
not only lost eight per cent, of her population, but 
twenty-five per cent, of her territory, from which 
cereals and potatoes were produced, and ten to 
twelve per cent, of her live stock, etc. 

We have already seen the enormous losses sus- 
tained by Germany in coal, iron and potash. 

The most intelligent and able working classes, 
ereated by the most patient efforts, have been re- 
duced to the state of becoming revolutionary ele- 
ments. By taking away from Germany at a stroke 
her merchant marine, about sixty thousand sailors 
have been thrown on the streets and their skill made 
useless. 

Germany, therefore, impoverished in her agricul- 
tural territory, deprived of a good part of her raw 
materials, with a population weakened in its produc- 
tive qualities, has lost a good part of her productive 
capacity because all her organization abroad has 
been broken, and eveiything which served as a 
means of exchange of products, such as her mer- 
chant fleet, has been destroyed. Moreover, Ger- 
many encounters everywhere obstacles and suspic- 
ion. Impeded from developing herself on the seas, 
held up to ridicule by the absurd corridor of Danzig, 
whereby there is a Polish State in German terri- 
tory, she can not help seeking life and raw materials 
in Eussia. 

In these conditions she must not only feed her 
vast population, not only produce sufficient to pre- 
vent her from falling into misery, but must also pay 



THE INDEMNITY 225 

an indemnity which fertile fantasies have made a 
deceived Europe believe should amount even to 
three hundred and fifty billions of gold marks, and 
which even now is supposed by seemingly reason- 
able people to be able to surpass easily the sum of a 
hundred billions. 

Could France or Italy, by any kind of sacrifice, 
have paid any indemnities after ending the war? 
Germany has not only to live and make reparation, 
but to maintain an Inter- Allied Army of Occupation 
and the heavy machinery of the Eeparations Com- 
mission, (on which every worthless individual is 
receiving compensation greater than that of the 
prime minister of his country) and must prepare to 
pay an indemnity for thirty years. France and 
Italy have preserved their colonies (Italy's do not 
amount to much), their merchant fleets (which 
have much increased), their foreign organization. 
Germany, without any of these things, is to find 
herself able to pay an indemnity which a brazen- 
faced and ignorant Press deceived the public into 
believing could amount to twenty or twenty-five 
billions a year. 

Taking by chance Helferich's book, which valued 
the annual capitalization at ten billions, the differ- 
ence between an annual production of forty-three 
billions and a consumption of thirty-three billions, 
inexpert persons have said that Germany can pay 
without difficulty ten billions, plus a premium on 
her exports, plus a sufficient quantity of goods and 
products. 



226 THE WEECK OF EUEOPE 

One becomes humiliated when one sees news- 
papers of serious reputation and politicians deemed 
not to be unimportant reasoning in language so 
false. 

The estimates of private wealth, about which the 
economists make experiments, and on which I my- 
self have written much in the past, have a relative 
value. It may be argued that before the war the 
total of all private patrimony in Germany surpassed 
by but little three hundred billions of marks; and 
this is a valuation made upon generous criteria. 

But when it is said that the annual capitalization 
of Germany was ten billion, that is not to say that 
ten billion of capital is deposited in the banks ready 
to be transferred at will. Capitalization means the 
creation of instruments of production. The national 
capital increases in proportion as these are in- 
creased. Therefore the best way of examining the 
annual capitalization of a country is to see how 
many new industries have arisen, to what extent the 
old ones have been improved, what improvements 
have been introduced into agriculture, what new in- 
vestments have been made, etc. 

If the annual capitalization of Germany before 
the war was scarcely ten billions of marks, it was 
too small for an empire of some sixty-seven million 
persons. I believe that in reality it was larger. But 
even if it came to fifteen billion, it represented a 
very small figure. 

The population in the progressive countries aug- 
ments every year. In Germany, before the war, in 



THE INDEMNITY 227 

the period 1908-1913, the population increased on an 
average by 843,000 persons a year, the difference be- 
tween the births and the deaths. In other words, 
the annual increase of the population per annum 
was at the rate of thirteen per thousand. 

As in certain districts of Italy the peasants plant 
a row of trees on the birth of very son, so among na- 
tions it is necessary to increase the national wealth 
at least in proportion to the newly bom. Supposing 
that the private wealth of the German citizens was 
from three hundred to three hundred and fifty bil- 
lions of marks (an exaggeration, doubtless), it 
would mean that the wealth increased each year by 
a thirteenth part or rather more. The difference 
between the increase in population and the increase 
in wealth constituted the effective increase in 
wealth, but always in a form not capable of being 
immediately handled. To plant trees, build work- 
shops, utilize water-power: all this stands for the 
output of so much force. One may undertake such 
works or not, but in any case the result can not im- 
mediately be given to the enemy. 

This is so obvious as to be banal. 

To seek to propagate the idea that Germany can 
give that which constitutes her annual capitalization 
either wholly or in great part is an example of ex- 
treme ignorance of economic facts. 

It is positively painful to listen to certain types 
of argument. 

A French minister has said that the success of the 
war loans for 151 billions in Germany, and the in- 



228 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

crease of bank deposits for a sum of 28 billions, 
coinciding with an increase of capital of 45 billions 
in stock companies, demonstrate that Germany has 
saved at least 180 billions in four years. Waiving 
the exactness of these figures, it is really sad to ob- 
serve reasoning of this type. How can the public 
have an idea of the reality? 

Let us apply the same reasoning to France. We 
must say that inasmuch as France before the war 
had a public debt of 32 billions, and now has a debt 
of 265 billions, without calculating what she owes to 
Great Britain and the United States, France, by 
reason of the war, has immensely enriched herself, 
since, leaving aside the debt contracted abroad and 
the previous debt, she has saved during the war 200 
billions, quite apart from the increase in bank de- 
posits and the increase in capital of stock compan- 
ies. The war has therefore immensely enriched her. 
In reality we are face to face with one of the phe- 
nomena of the intoxication brought about by paper 
money, by means of which it has been possible at 
certain times for the public to believe that the war 
had increased wealth. Other features of this phe- 
nomenon we have in the wretched example of the 
capitalist classes, after which it was not unnatural 
that the people should give way to a great increase 
in consumption, should demand high wages and of- 
fer little work in return at the very time when it was 
most necessary to work more and consume less. 
There is small cause for wonder that certain erro- 
neous ideas are diffused among the public when they 



THE INDEMNITY 229 

have their being in those very sophisms according 
to which the indemnity to be paid by the beaten 
enemy will pay all the debts and losses of the con- 
quering nations. 

"We are told that Germany, being responsible for 
the war, must impose on herself a regime of restric- 
tions and organize herself as an exporting nation for 
the payment of the reparation debts. 

Here again the question can be considered in two 
ways, according as it is proposed to allow Germany 
a free commerce or to impose on her a series of 
forced cessions of goods in payment of the repara- 
tions. Both hypotheses can be entertained, but 
both, as we shall see, lead to economic disorder in 
the conquering states, if these relations are to be 
regulated by violence. 

It is useless to dilate on the other aphorisms, or 
rather sophisms, which were seriously discussed at 
the Paris Conference, and which even had the honor 
of being sustained by the technical experts : 

1. That it is not important to know what Ger- 
many can pay, but it is sufficient to know what she 
ought to pay. 

2. That no one can foresee what immense re- 
sources Germany will develop within thirty or forty 
years, and what Germany will not be able to pay will 
be paid by the Allies. 

3. That Germany, under the stimulus of a mili- 
tary occupation, will increase her production in an 
unheard-of manner. 

4. The obligation arising from the treaty is an 



230 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

absolute one ; the capacity to pay can only be taken 
into consideration to establish the number and 
amount of the annual payments; the total must in 
any case be paid within thirty years or more. 

5. Elle ou nous. Germany must pay; if she 
doesn 't the Allies must pay. It is not necessary that 
Germany free herself by a certain date; it is only 
necessary that she pay all. 

6. Germany has not to discuss, only to pay. Let 
time illustrate what is at present unforeseeable, etc., 
etc. 

If we exclude the third means of payment Ger- 
many has two ways open to her. First of all she 
can give goods. What goods? When we speak of 
goods we really mean coal. Now, as we have seen, 
according to the treaty Germany must furnish for 
ten years to Belgium, Italy, and France especially, 
quantities of coal, which in the first five years run 
from 391/4 to 42 millions of tons, and in the following 
five years come to a maximum of about 32 millions. 
And all this when she has lost the Saar coal fields 
and is faced with the threatening situation in Upper 
Silesia. 

Germany's exports reached their maximum in 
1913, when the figures touched 10,097 millions of 
marks, excluding precious metals. Grouping ex- 
ports and imports in categories, the millions of 
marks were distributed as follows : 

Imports. Exports. 

Foodstuffs 2,759 1,035 

Livestock 289 7.4 



THE INDEMNITY 231 

Raw materials 5,003 1,518 

Semi-manufactured goods . . 5,003 1,139 
Manufactured goods 1,478 6,395 

About one-fifth of the entire exports was in iron 
and machine products (1,337 [millions] articles in 
iron, 680 machines) ; 722 millions from coal (as 
against imports of other qualities of 289), 658 mil- 
lions of chemical products and drugs, 446 from cot- 
ton, 298 paint, 290 techno-electrical productions, etc. 

Germany by imposing upon herself a regime of 
severe sacrifice can give up certain quantities of coal 
and some products, but in order to obtain payment 
abroad she must not only export but must export 
more than she imports. As she now has neither 
ships nor credit nor commercial organizations 
abroad she can not balance her credits unless the im- 
ports and exports balance, and she can only make 
payments to the degree in which exports surpass 
imports. 

In 1920, notwithstanding all her efforts, the ex- 
ports of Germany were worth five billion gold marks 
and the imports 5.4 billions. Her balance for the 
first half of 1921 is even more unfavorable. 

Every demand for payment from Germany ruins 
her credit abroad in such a way as to further depre- 
ciate the value of the mark and to render difficult 
any further payment. 

What goods can Germany give in payment of the 
indemnity f We have seen how she has lost a very 
large part of her iron and a considerable quantity 
of her coal. 



232 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

All the economic strength of Germany was based 
upon: 

(a) The proper use of her reserves of coal and 
iron, which allowed her to develop enormously those 
industries which are based on these two elements. 

(h) On her transport and tariff system, which 
enabled her to fight any competition. 

(c) On her powerful overseas commercial organ- 
ization. 

Now, by effect of the treaty, these three great 
forces have been entirely or in part destroyed. 

What goods can Germany give in payment of the 
indemnity, and what goods can she offer Avithout 
ruining the internal production of the Entente 
countries? Let us suppose that Germany gives 
machines, dyes, wagons, locomotives, etc. Then for 
this very fact the countries of the Entente, already 
suffering by unemployment, would soon see their 
factories obliged to shut do^Ti. Germany must 
therefore, above all, give raw materials; but since 
she is herself a country that imports raw materials, 
and has an enormous and dense population, she is 
herself obliged to import raw materials for the fun- 
damental needs of her existence. 

If we examine Germany's commerce in the five 
years prior to the war — that is, in the five years of 
her greatest boom — we shall find that the imports 
always exceeded the exports. In the two years be- 
fore the war, 1912 and 1913, the imports were 
respectively 10,691 and 10,770 millions, and the ex- 
ports 8,956 and 10,097 millions. In some years the 



THE INDEMNITY 233 

difference even exceeded two billions, and was com- 
pensated by credits abroad, and by the payment of 
freight and with the remittances (always consider- 
able) of the German emigrants. All this is lost. 

Exported goods can yield to the exporter a profit 
of, let us suppose, ten, twelve, or twenty per cent. 
For the Allies to take an income from the Custom 
returns means in practise reducing the exports. In 
fact, in Germany production must be carried on at 
such low prices as to compensate for the difference, 
or the exports must be reduced. 

In the first case (which is not likely, since Ger- 
many succeeds only with difficulty, owing to her 
exchange, in obtaining raw materials, and must en- 
counter worse difficulties in this respect than other 
countries), Germany would be preparing the ruin of 
the other countries in organizing forms of produc- 
tion which are superior to those of all her rivals. 
Germany would therefore damage all her creditors, 
especially in the foreign markets. 

In the second case — the reduction of exports — one 
would have the exactly opposite effect to that im- 
agined in the program proposed; that is, the in- 
demnities would become unpayable. 

In terms of francs or lire at par with the dollar, 
Germany's exportations in 1920 have amounted to 
7,250 millions. In 1921 an increase may be foreseen. 

If Germany has to pay in cash and kind 2,500 mil- 
lions of marks at par, plus 26 per cent, of the total 
of her exports, then supposing an export trade of 
eight billions, she will have to give 2,040 billions, or 



234 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

in all 4,540 billions of marks. Thus we arrive by 
stages at less hyperbolical figures, coming down 
from the twenty-five billions a year to something 
less than a fifth. But to come to grips with reality, 
Germany in all ways, it must be admitted, can not 
give more than two billions a year in raw materials 
and goods, if, indeed, it is desired that an indemnity 
be paid. 

Notwithstanding her great resources, France 
would not be in a condition to pay abroad two bil- 
lions a year without ruining her exchange, which 
would drop at once to the level of Germany's. Italy 
with difficulty could pay one billion. 

France and Italy are honest countries, yet they 
can not pay their war creditors, and have not been 
able, and are not able, to pay any share of their debt 
either to the United States of America or to Great 
Britain. As a matter of fact, up to the present they 
have paid nothing, and the interest continues to ac- 
cumulate with the capital. 

Why have neither France nor Italy yet started to 
pay some of their debt? Having won the war, 
France has had all she could have — fertile territo- 
ries, new colonies, an abundance of raw material, and 
above all iron and potash. The simple explanation 
is that which I have given above. 

Can, then, Germany, who is in a terrible condition, 
whose circulation promises ruin, who has no longer 
credits nor organization abroad, who has a great 
shortage in raw materials ; can Germany pay four or 
five billions a year? 

We must also remember that Germany, in addi- 



THE INDEMNITY 235 

tion to the indemnity, must pay the cost of the Army 
of Occupation, which up to the present has amounted 
to twenty-five billions of paper marks a year, or 
more than 1,600 billions of francs at par. That is, 
Germany has to bear for the support of the Allied 
troops a charge equal to the cost of maintaining the 
armies of France, Italy and Belgium before the war. _-^ ^.jla> 

On the 19th of September, 1921, the German min- 
ister of finance presented to the Reichstag a report 
which shows that the expenses for the occupation 
are calculated at 408,574,608 gold marks every three 
months, which means more than a million and a half 
gold marks a year, and in figures, 1,634,298,432 
marks. 

In this sum there were not included the expenses 
paid by the German Government because of the de- 
mands of troops and of military authorities in the 
occupied zone, expenses which amounted to several 
billion paper marks. 

The balance sheet of the German Empire for 1914 
provided for an ordinary outlay of 870,000,000 marks 
and an extraordinary budget of 338,000,000, 1,208,- 
000,000 marks in all ; and for the navy, ordinary ex- 
penses of 221,000,000 marks and an extraordinary 
of 235,000,000, or in all, 456,000,000 marks. 

In other words, the occupation of the Ehine which 
is now carried on practically and in large part by 
France costs double the ordinary expenses of the 
German Army and a sum equivalent to all the ordi- 
nary and extraordinary expenses for the army and 
the navy before the war. 

While Germany is helpless and while France has 



236 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

an ai*my larger than any state in Europe has ever 
had in peace times, France, through the occupation 
of the Rhine, has arranged that this army should be 
paid for by Germany. 

And as the final insult to the conquered in the 
Army of Occupation backward races are represent- 
ed. Thus the most cultured cities in Europe have 
been and are under negro violence which has been 
guilty of the most serious crimes. The German 
population has been subjected, unnecessarily and in 
order to satisfy the desire to offend, to physical and 
moral trials unknown for centuries in civilized coun- 
tries. In April of 1921 there were still on the Rhine 
fourteen or fifteen colored regiments, nine to ten 
from Algeria, two from Tunis, three from Morocco, 
and one from Madagascar. There still remain, after 
the departure of two Senegalese regiments, some 
negro detachments. Documents have shown at 
length what outrages have been perpetrated by the 
troops of occupation and what crimes the negroes 
have committed. Henceforth everybody knows that 
the occupation has no military aim, but (like the 
confiscation of the Saar coal and the pretext of 
enormous indemnities and the splitting up of Upper 
Silesia) only one aim is kept in view: Germany must 
be forced to the point of moral exhaustion and her 
unity in sentiment, and indeed even her political 
unity, broken. 

In war, all violence and cruelty can not be justified 
but at least can be explained. But when traditional 
sentiments and respect for others no longer exist, all 



THE INDEMNITY 237 

tlie instincts of violence are given free play. There 
has never been a war which has not resulted in cer- 
tain outbreaks of violent instincts. But what is now 
happening in peace times has no parallel in modern 
history. For some centuries back no country in 
Europe soiled itself with the guilt or contaminated 
itself with the absurdities of the victorious Entente, 
and in the hour of danger the Entente had pro- 
claimed that she desired the triumph of the prin- 
ciples of democracy and liberty. 

War has its ups and downs; the conquerors of 
to-day are the conquered of to-morrow. Who can 
foresee the future ? To have abused victory in peace 
and to have reintroduced methods of violence which 
are a discredit to civilization rests with the Entente 
alone. 

If England had lost the war or if the United States 
had been conquered, I can not imagine what they 
would say about a conquering Germany which had 
had Liverpool, New York, and the principal ports 
and industrial centers occupied by black savages and 
by whites clamoring for indemnities so high that 
there was no remote possibility of their ever being 
satisfied. The truth is that Germany and the con- 
quered countries in the peace after their victory 
have never committed any of the absurd actions 
which have deprived the conquerors of all moral 
prestige. And we should remember that during the 
war the conquerors declared (Joint Declaration of 
December 30, 1916) that they were united for the de- 
fense and the liberty of peoples, 



238 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

In all times men have found it easier to appropri- 
ate the wealth produced by others than to produce 
wealth with their own labor. 

Thus Europe to-day, instead of restoring peace 
and making an effort to re-create lost wealth, is 
destroying new wealth in the illusion of the conquer- 
ors, or at least of some of them, that they can live 
upon the efforts of the conquered. 

But the economic delusions are becoming appar- 
ent and now even the blindest begin to understand 
the moral absurdity in which the conquerors find 
themselves. They have taken from the conquered 
everything they could and they now declare on their 
side that they can not discharge the obligations as- 
sumed during the war and pretend not only that the 
conquered shall pay but that they shall work as 
^ slaves to reconstruct the wealth of the conquerors. 
<"-" No financier seriously believes that the issue of 
bonds authorized by the treaty for the credit of the 
Reparations Commission has now any probability of 
success. Germany's monetary circulation system is 
falling to the stage of assignats, and the time is not 
distant when, if intelligent provision is not made, 
Germany will not be in a position to pay any 
indemnity. 

Obliged to pay only one billion of gold marks, 
Germany has not been able to find this modest sum 
(modest, that is, in comparison with all the dreams 
about the indemnity) without contracting new for- 
eign debts and increasing her already enormous 
paper circulation. Each new indemnity payment, 



THE INDEMNITY 239 

each new debt incurred, will only place Germany in 
the position of being unable to make payments 
abroad. 

Many capitalists, even in Italy, inspire their Press 
to state that Germany derives an advantage from 
the depreciation of her mark, or, in other words, is 
content with its low level. But the high exchanges 
(and in the case of Germany it amounts to ruin) 
render almost impossible the purchase of raw ma- 
terials, of which Germany has need. With what 
means must she carry out her payments if she is 
obliged to cede a large part of her customs receipts, 
that is of her best form of monetary value, and if 
she has no longer either credits or freights abroad? 

If what is happening injured Germany alone, it 
would be more possible to explain it, if not to justify 
it. But, on the contrary, Germany's fall, which is 
also the decadence of Europe, profoundly disturbs 
not only the European continent, but many other 
producing countries. Though the United States and 
Great Britain partly escape the effect, they too feel 
the influence of it, not only in their political serenity, 
but in the market of goods and values. Germany's 
position is bound up with that of Europe ; her con- 
querors can not escape dire consequences if the erst- 
while enemy collapses. 

We must not forget that before the war, in the 
years 1912 and 1913, the larger part of Germany's 
commerce was with the United States, with Great 
Britain, with Russia and with Austria-Hungary. 
In 1913 her commerce with the United States repre- 



240 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

sented alone little less than two billions and a half 
of marks according to the statistics of the German 
Empire, and 520 millions of dollars according to the 
figures of America. If we except Canada, which we 
may consider a territorial continuation, the two best 
customers of the United States were Great Britain 
and Germany. They were, moreover, the two cus- 
tomers whose imports largely exceeded the exports. 
The downfall of Germany will bring about inevit- 
ably a formidable crisis in the Anglo-Saxon coun- 
tries and consequent ruin in other countries* 

Up to the present Germany has given all she 
could; any further payment will cause a downfall 
without changing the actual monetary position. 
Germany, after a certain point, will not pay, but 
will drag down in her fall the economic edifices of 
the victorious countries of the Continent. 

All attempts at force are useless, all impositions 
are sterile. 

All this is true and can not be denied, but at the 
same time it must be recognized that in the first 
move for the indemnity there was a reasonable cause 
for anxiety on the part of the Allies. 

If Germany had had to pay no indemnity this 
absurd situation would have come about, that al- 
though exhausted, Germany would have issued from 
the war without debts abroad and could easily have 
got into her stride again, while France, Italy, and 
in much less degree Great Britain, would have come 
out of the war with heavy debts. 

This anxiety was not only just and well founded, 



THE INDEMNITY 241 

but it is easy to see why it gave ground for a feeling 
of grave disquiet. 

France and Italy, the two big victor states of the 
Continent, were only able to carry on the war 
through the assistance of Great Britain and the 
United States. The war would not have lasted long 
without the aid of the Anglo-Saxons, which had a 
decisive effect. 

France has obtained all she asked for, and, indeed, 
more than all her previsions warranted. Italy has 
found herself in a difficult position. She too has 
realized her territorial aspirations, though not com- 
pletely, and the assistance of her Allies has not al- 
ways been cordial. 

I have had, as head of the government, to oppose 
all the agitations, and especially the Adriatic adven- 
tures, which have caused an acute party division in 
Italy. From a sense of duty I have also assumed all 
responsibility. But the rigidness of Wilson in the 
Fiume and Adriatic questions and the behavior of 
some of the European Allies have been perfectly un- 
justifiable. In certain messages to Wilson during 
my term of government I did not fail to bring this 
fact forward. Certainly, Jugo-Slavia 's demands 
must be considered with a sense of justice, and it 
would have been an error and an injustice to at- 
tribute to Italy large tracts of territory in Dalmatia ; 
but it would have been possible to find a more rea- 
sonable settlement for a country which has had such 
sufferings and known such losses during the war. 
In any case, when by the absurd system followed in 



242 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

the treaties so many millions of Germans, Magyars, 
Turks and Bulgarians have been handed over to 
states like Serbia, whose intemperate behavior pre- 
cipitated the war, or to states like Greece, which 
took only a small and obligatory part in it, when 
states like Poland have won their unity and inde- 
pendence without making war, when Germany has 
been dismembered in order to give Poland an access 
to the sea and the ridiculous situation of Danzig 
has been created, when the moral paradox of the 
Saar, which now becomes a German Alsace-Lor- 
raine, has been set up, when so many millions of 
men have been parceled out without any criteria, it 
was particularly invidious to contest so bitterly 
Italy's claims. I can freely affirm this inasmuch as, 
risking all popularity, I have always done my duty 
as a statesman, pointing out that solution which 
time has proved to be inevitable. 

No one can deny that Italy is passing through a 
period of crisis and political ill-health. Such states 
of public psychology are for peoples what neuras- 
thenia is for individuals. On what does it depend? 
Often enough on reasons which can not be isolated 
or defined. It is a state of mind which may come to 
an end at any minute, and is consequent upon the 
after-effects of the war. Rather than coming from 
the economic disorder, it derives from a malady of 
the temperament. 

I have never believed, in spite of the agitations 
which have been seen at certain periods, in the pos- 
sibility of a revolutionary movement in Italy. Italy 



THE INDEMNITY 243 

is the only country which has never had religious 
wars, the only country which in twenty centuries has 
never had a real revolution. Land of an ancient 
civilization, prone to sudden bursts of enthusiasm, 
susceptible to rapid moods of discouragement, Italy, 
with all the infinite resources of the Latin spirit, has 
always overcome the most difficult crises by her 
wonderful adaptive power. In human history she is, 
perhaps, the only country where three great civiliza- 
tions have risen up one after another in her limited 
soil. If Italy can have the minimum of coal, cereals 
and raw materials necessary to her existence and 
her economic revival, the traditional good sense of 
the Italian people will easily overcome a crisis which 
is grave, but which affects in various measure all the 
victors, and is especially temperamental. 

It can not be denied that if all Europe is sick, 
Italy has its owai special state of mind, which is a 
mixture of intolerance and illusion. Those who 
wished the war and those who were against it are 
both dissatisfied : the former because, after the war, 
Italy has not had the compensations she expected, 
and has had sufferings far greater than could have 
been imagined; the latter because they attribute to 
the war and the conduct of the war the great trials 
which the nation has now to face. This sickness of 
the spirit is the greatest cause of disorder, since 
malcontent is always the worst kind of leaven. 

Four great countries decided the war; Great 
Britain, France, Italy, and the United States of 
America. Russia fell to pieces soon, and fell rather 



244 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

on account of her own internal conditions than from 
enemy pressure. The action of the United States 
arrived late, but was decisive. Each country, how- 
ever, acted from a different state of mind. France 
Had of necessity to make war. Her territory was in- 
vaded, and all hope of salvation lay in moral resist- 
ance alone. Great Britain had to wage the war out 
of sense of duty. She had guaranteed the neutrality 
of Belgium, and could not fail to keep her word of 
honor. Two countries alone chose freely the sor- 
rowful way of the war: Italy and the United States. 
But their sacrifices, sufferings and losses have been 
very different. During the war the United States 
have been able to develop their immense resources, 
and, notmth standing some crises, they have come 
out of it much richer than before. From being 
debtors to Europe they have become creditors. 
They had few losses in men, and a great develop- 
ment in wealth. Italy, who after many difficulties 
had developed in her famous but too narrow terri- 
tory the germs of a greater fortune, has had, to- 
gether with very heavy losses in men, heavy losses 
in her wealth. 

Italy saved the destinies of France for the first 
time by declaring her neutrality on August 2, 1914, 
and letting the certainty of it be known from July 
30, as the diplomatic documents have shown. 

It was that sudden and unexpected declaration of 
neutrality which rendered it possible for France to 
concentrate all her forces in the north and to win 
the battle of the Marne. Italy for a second time 



THE INDEMNITY 245 

saved the destinies of the Entente by entering into 
the war (too precipitately and unprepared), in May, 
1915, thus preventing the Austrian Army, which "was 
formidable for its technical organization and for its 
valor, from obtaining the advantages it expected. 

Why did Italy go to war 1 

The diplomatic documents, which are not all docu- 
ments of political wisdom,'demonstrate the anxiety 
of the Italian Government to realize its Adriatic 
program and to gain secure frontiers against Aus- 
tria-Hungary and its successors. But this w^as not 
the cause of the war; it was rather a means of ex- 
plaining to the people the necessity for the w^ar. 
Italy had been for nearly thirty-four years ally of 
Austria-Hungary, and the aspirations of Italy's 
Adriatic policy had never disturbed the relations 
between the two countries. The real cause of Italy's 
war was a sentimental movement, a form of extra- 
ordinary agitation of the spirits, brought about by 
the invasion of Belgium and the danger of France. 
The intellectual movement especially, the world of 
culture, partook largely in fomenting the state of 
exaltation which determined the war. 

During the progress of the war, which was long 
and bitter, Italy passed through some terrible hours. 
Her privations during the war, and immediately 
after, surpassed all expectations. Italy found her- 
self face to face with an enemy who enjoyed a 
superior geographical situation, a numerical super- 
iority, as well as a superiority in artillery. After 
the downfall of Russia she had to support a terrible 



246 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

campaign. Even in 1917, after the military disaster, 
when Allied troops came to Italy, she sent abroad 
more men than there came Allied troops to her aid. 
According to some statistics which I had compiled, 
and which I communicated to the Allies, Italy was 
shown, in relation to her vital statistics, to have 
more men in the* front line than any other country. 
The economic sufferings were, and are, greater than 
those endured by others. France is only in part 
a Mediterranean country, while Italy is entirely so. 
During the war the action of the submarines ren- 
dered the victualing of Italy a very difficult matter. 
Many provinces, for months on end, had to content 
themselves with the most wretched kind of food. 
Taking population and wealth into proportion, if 
the United States had made the effort of Italy they 
would have had to arm sixteen millions of men, to 
have lost a million and a half to two million soldiers, 
and to have spent at least four hundred billions. In 
order to work up popular enthusiasm (and it was 
perhaps necessary), the importance of the country's 
Adriatic claims was exaggerated. Thus many 
Italians believe even to-day in good faith that the 
war may be considered as lost if some of these aspir- 
ations are not reahzed, and some of them have not 
been and can not be. 

But, after the war, Italy *s situation suddenly 
changed. The war had aroused in the minds of all 
Europeans a certain sentiment of violence, a long- 
ing for expansion and conquest. The proclamations 
of the Entente, the declarations of Wilson's prin- 



THE INDEMNITY 247 

ciples, or points, became so contorted that no trace 
of them could be fomid in the treaties, save for that 
ironic covenant of the League of Nations, which is 
always repeated on the front page, as Dante said of 
the rule of St. Benedict, at the expense of the paper. 

For Italy a very curious situation came about. 
France had but one enemy: Germany. She united 
all her forces against this enemy in a coherent and 
single action which culminated in the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles. France had but one idea: to make the 
Entente abandon the principles it had proclaimed, 
and try to suffocate Germany, dismember her, 
humiliate her by means of a military occupation, by 
controlling her transports, confiscating all her avail- 
able wealth, by raising to the dignity of elevated and 
highly civilized states inferior populations without 
national dignity. 

Austria-Hungary was composed of eleven peoples. 
It was split up into a series of states. Austria and 
Hungary were reduced to small territories and shut 
up in narrow confines. All the other countries were 
given to Eumania, to Serbia, to Poland, or else were 
formed into new states, such as Czecho-Slovakia. 
These countries were considered by the Entente as 
allies, and, to further good relations, the most im- 
portant of the Entente nations protected their as- 
pirations even against the wishes of Italy. The 
Italians had found themselves in their difficult the- 
ater of war against Galatians, Bosnians, Croats, 
Transylvanians, etc. But by the simple fact of their 
having changed names, and having called themselves 



248 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Poles, Jugo-Slavs, Rumanians, they became friends. 
In order to favor some of these new friends, it has 
happened that not only have Italy's sentiments been 
offended, but even justice itself. Montenegro was 
always mentioned in the declarations of the Entente. 
On January 10, 1917, Briand, speaking in the name 
of all the Allies, united at that time pour la defense 
et la liberie des peuples, put forward as a fundamen- 
tal program the restoration of Belgium, Serbia and 
Montenegro : Montenegro was in this on an equality 
with Belgium. Just a year afterward, January 8, 
1918, Wilson, when formulating his fourteen points, 
had included in the eleventh proposition the duty of 
evacuating the territories of Rumania, Serbia and 
Montenegro, and restoring them. The exact reason 
for which it was established that Montenegro should 
be absorbed (even without plebiscite) by the Jugo- 
slav State, thus offending also Italy's sentiments, 
will remain one of the most melancholy pages of the 
New Holy Alliance that the Entente has become, 
along with that poor discredited organization, the 
League of Nations. But let us hope this latter will 
find a means of renovating itself. 

While France was ruining the German people's 
sources of life, the peoples who had fought most 
ferociously against Italy became, through the war, 
friendly nations, and every aspiration of Italy ap- 
peared directed to lessen the prestige of the new 
friends and allies. 

The territories annexed to Italy have a small 
economic value. 



THE INDEMNITY 249 

For more than thirty years Italy had sold a large 
part of her richest agricultural produce to Germany 
and had imported a considerable share of her raw 
materials from Russia. Since the war she has found 
herself in a state of regular isolation. A large part 
of the Italian Press, which repeats at haphazard the 
commonest themes of the French Press instead of 
wishing for a more intense revival of commercial re- 
lations with Germany, frightens the ignorant public 
with stories of German penetration; and the very 
plutocracy in France and Italy — though not to the 
same extent in Italy — abandons itself to the identi- 
cal error. So to-day we find spread throughout the 
peninsula a sense of lively discontent which is con- 
ducive to a wider acceptance of the exaggerations 
of the Socialists and the Fascisti. But the phenom- 
enon is a transitory one. 

Italy had no feeling of rancor against the German 
people. She entered the war against German im- 
perialism, and can not now follow any imperialistic 
policy. Indeed, in the face of the imperialistic com- 
petitions which have followed the war, Italy finds 
herself in a state of profound psychological 
uneasiness. 

France worries herself about one people only, 
since as a matter of fact she has only one warlike 
race at her frontiers: Germany. Italy's frontiers 
touch France, the German peoples, the Slav races. 
It is, therefore, her interest to approve a democratic 
policy which allows no one of the group of combat- 
ants to take up a position of superiority. The true 



250 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Italian nationalist policy consists in being against 
all excessive nationalisms, and nothing is more 
harmful to Italy's policy than the abandonment of 
those democratic principles in the name of which she 
arose and by which she lives. If the policy of justice 
is a moral duty for the other nations, for Italy it is a 
necessity of existence. The Italian people have a 
clear vision of these facts, notwithstanding a certain 
section of her Press and notwithstanding the exag- 
gerations of certain excited parties arisen from the 
ashes of the war. And therefore her uneasiness is 
great. While other countries have an economic 
crisis, Italy experiences, in addition, a mental crisis, 
but one with which she will be able to cope. 

France, however, is in a much more difficult situa- 
tion, and her policy is still a result of her anxieties. 
All the violences against Germany were, until the 
day before yesterday, an effect of hatred; to-day 
they are derived from dread. Moral ideas have for 
nations a still greater value than wealth. France 
had until the other day the prestige of her demo- 
cratic institutions. All of us who detested the 
Hohenzollern dynasty and the insolent fatuity of 
William II loved France, heir of the bourgeois revo- 
lution and champion of democracy. So, when the 
war came, all the democracies felt a lively pang : the 
crushing of France meant the crushing of democracy 
and liberty. All the old bonds are broken, all the or- 
ganization which Germany had abroad is smashed 
up, and France has been saved, not by arms alone, 
but by the powerful desire of free peoples. 



THE INDEMNITY 251 

Yet victory has taken away from France her 
greatest prestige, her fascination as a democratic 
country. Now all the democratic races of the world 
look at France with an eye of distrust — some, in- 
deed, with rancor; others with hate. France has 
comported herself much more crudely toward Ger- 
many than a victorious Germany would have com- 
ported herself toward France. In the case of 
Eussia, she has followed purely plutocratic tenden- 
cies. She has on foot the largest army in the world 
in front of a helpless Germany. She sends colored 
troops to occupy the most cultured and progressive 
cities of Germany, abusing the fruits of victory. She 
shows no respect for the principle of nationality or 
for the right of self-determination. 

Germany is in a helpless and broken condition to- 
day; she will not make war; she can not. But if 
to-morrow she should make war, how many peoples 
would come to France's aid? 

The policy which has set the people of Europe 
against one another, the diffusion of nationalist vio- 
lence, the crude persecutions of enemies, excluded 
even from the League of Nations, have created an 
atmosphere of distrust of France. Admirable in her 
political sense, France, by reason of an error of 
exaltation, has lost almost all the benefit of her vic- 
torious action. 

A situation hedged with difficulties has been 
brought about. The United States and Great Britain 
have no longer any treaty of alliance of guarantee 
with France. The Anglo-Saxons, conquerors of the 



252 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

war and the peace, have drawn themselves aside. 
Italy has no alliance and can not have any. No 
Italian politician could pledge his country, and Par- 
liament only desires that Italy follow a democratic, 
peaceful policy, maintaining herself in Europe as a 
force for equilibrium and life. 

France, apart from her military alliance with Bel- 
gium, has a whole system of alliances based largely 
on the newly formed states : shifting sands like Po- 
land, Russia's and Germany's enemy, whose fate no 
one can prophesy when Germany is reconstructed 
and Russia risen again, unless she finds a way of 
remedying her present mistakes, which are much 
more numerous than her past misfortunes. Thus 
the more France increases her army, the more she 
corners raw materials and increases her measures 
against Germany, the more restless she becomes. 

She has seen that Germany, mistress on land, and 
to a large extent on the seas, after having carried 
everywhere her victorious flag, after having organ- 
ized her commerce and, by means of her bankers, 
merchants and capitalists, made vast expansions and 
placed a regular network of relations and intrigue 
round the earth, fell when she attempted her act of 
imperialistic violence. France, when in difficulties, 
appealed to the sentiment of the nations and found 
arms everywhere to help her. What then is clever 
organization worth to-day? 

The fluctuations of fortune in Europe show for all 
her peoples a succession of victories and defeats. 
There are no peoples always victorious. After hav- 



THE INDEMNITY 253 

ing, under Napoleon I, humiliated Germany, France 
saw the end of her imperialistic dream, and later 
witnessed the ruin of Napoleon III. She has suf- 
fered two great defeats, and then, when she stood 
diminished in stature before a Germany at the top 
of her fortune, she, together with the Allies, has 
had a victory over an enemy who seemed invincible. 

But no one can foresee the future. To have con- 
veyed great nuclei of German populations to the Slav 
States, and especially to Poland; to have divided 
the Magyars, without any consideration for their 
fine race, among the Rumanians, Czecho-Slovaks 
and the Jugo-Slavs ; to have used every kind of vio- 
lence Avith the Bulgars; to have offended Turkey 
on any and every pretext ; to have done this is not to 
have guaranteed the victory and the peace. 

Russia sooner or later will recover. It is an illu- 
sion to suppose that Great Britain, France and Italy 
can form an agreement to regulate the new state or 
new states that will arise in Russia. There are too 
many tendencies and diverse interests. Germany, 
too, "will reconstruct herself after a series of sorrows 
and privations, and no one can say how the Germans 
will behave. Unless a policy of peace and social ren- 
ovation be shaped and followed, our sons will wit- 
ness scenes much more terrible than those which 
have horrified our generation and upset our minds 
even more than our interests. 

Meanwhile, in spite of the frightful increase of 
scrofula, rickets and tuberculosis, from which the 
conquered peoples are principally suffering, the 



254 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

inarch of the nations will proceed according to the 
laws which have hitherto ruled them and on which 
our limited action can only for brief periods cause 
small modifications or alterations. 

Forecasts based on vital statistics, like all fore- 
casts of social events, have but a comparative value. 
It is true that such statistics are based upon mani- 
festations, but it is also true that economic and 
social factors exercise a profound influence in limit- 
ing their regularity and can disturb them very con- 
siderably. It is better therefore not to make long- 
term prophecies. 

What is certain is that the French population has 
increased almost imperceptibly while the population 
of Germany augmented very rapidly. The annual 
average of births in the five years before the war, 
1908-13, was 762,000 in France and 176,000 in Bel- 
gium. In Germany it was 1,916,000. The average 
of deaths was 729,000 in France, 117,000 in Belgium, 
and 1,073,000 in Germany. Thus, per thousand, the 
excess of births in France was 0.9, in Belgium 7.7, 
in Germany 13. The war has terribly aggravated 
the situation in France, whose structure is far from 
being a healthy one. From statistics published giv- 
ing the first results of the French census of 1921 — 
without the ncAV territory of Alsace-Lorraine 
— France, in the interval between the two census 
periods, has decreased by 2,102,864 ; from 39,602,258 
to 37,499,394 (1921). The deaths in the war do not 
represent a half of this decrease, when are deducted 
the losses among the colored troops and those from 



THE INDEMNITY 255 

French colonies who fought for France. The new 
territories annexed to France do not compensate for 
the war mortality and the decrease in births. 

We may presume that if normal conditions of life 
return, the population of Germany and German- 
Austria will be more than one hundred millions, that 
the population of Belgium altogether little less than 
fifty millions, that Italy will have a population much 
greater than that of France, of at least forty-five 
million inhabitants, and that Great Britain will have 
about sixty million inhabitants. In the case of the 
Germans we have mentioned one hundred million 
persons, taking into consideration Germany and 
German-Austria. But the Germans of Poland, of 
Czecho-Slovakia and the Baltic States will amount 
to at least twenty millions of inhabitants. No one 
can make forecasts, even of an approximate nature, 
on Russia, whose fecundity is always the highest in 
Europe, and whose losses are rapidly replaced by a 
high birth-rate even after the greatest catastrophes. 
And then there are the Germans spread about the 
world, great aggregations of population as in the 
United States of America and in a lesser degree in 
Brazil. Up to the present these people have been 
silent, not only because they were surrounded by 
hostile populations, but because the accusation of 
being sons of the Huns weighed down upon them 
more than any danger of the war. But the Treaty 
of Versailles, and more still the manner in which it 
has been applied, is to dissipate, and soon will en- 
tirely dissipate, the atmosphere of antipathy that 



256 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

existed against the Germans. In Great Britain the 
situation has changed profoundly in three years. 
The United States have made their separate peace 
and want no responsibility. In Italy there scarcely 
exists any hatred for the Germans, and apart from 
certain capitalists who paint in lurid colors the dan- 
ger of German penetration in their papers because 
they want higher tariff protection and to be able 
to speculate on government orders, there is no one 
who does not desire peace with all peoples. The 
great majority of the Italian people only desire to 
reconstruct the economic and social life of the 
nation. 

Certain tendencies in France's policy depend per- 
haps on her great anxiety for the future, an anxiety, 
in fact, not unjustified by the lessons of the past. 
Germany, notwithstanding her fallen state, her 
anguish and the torment she has to go through, is 
so strong and vital that everybody is certain of see- 
ing her once again powerful, indeed more powerful 
and formidable than ever. 

Every one in France is convinced that the Treaty 
of Versailles has lost all foundation since the United 
States of America abandoned it, and since Great 
Britain and Italy, persuaded of the impossibility of 
putting certain clauses into effect, have shown by 
their attitude that they are not disposed to entertain 
coercive measures which are as useless as they are 
damaging. 

In France the very authors of the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles recognize that it is weakened by a series of 



THE INDEMNITY 257 

successive attenuations. Tardieu has asserted that 
the Treaty of Versailles tends to be abandoned on all 
sides: ^'Cette faillite a des causes allemandes, des 
causes allies, des causes frangaises." The United 
States has asked itself, after the trouble that has 
followed the treaty, if wisdom did not lie in the old 
time isolation, in Washington's farewell address, in 
the Monroe Doctrine: Keep off. But in America 
they have not understood, says Tardieu, that to as- 
sist Europe the same solidarity was necessary that 
existed during the war. 

Great Britain, according to Tardieu, tends now 
also to stand aside. The English are inclined to say, 
''Let's not talk about it," — '^N'en parlons plus.'* 
No Frenchman will accept with calm the manner in 
which Lloyd George has conceived the execution of 
the peace treaty. The campaign for the revision of 
the treaties that sprang up in lower spheres and 
from popular associations and workmen's groups, 
has surprised and saddened the French spirit. In 
the new developments Tardieu wonders whether it is 
another England or another Lloyd George — ''etait 
ce une autre Angleterre, etait ce un autre Lloyd 
George f Even in France herself Tardieu recog- 
nizes sadly the language has altered: "les gouverne- 
ments frangais, qui se sont succede au pouvoir depuis 
le 10 Janvier, 1920," that is, after the fall of Cle- 
menceau, accused in turn by Poincare of being weak 
and feeble in asserting his demands, ''ont compromis 
les droits que leur predecesseur avait fait recon- 
naitre a la France." 



258 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Taking into consideration Germany's financial 
downfall, which threatens to upset not only all the 
indemnity schemes but the entire economy of Con- 
tinental Europe, the state of mind which is prevalent 
is not much different from that which Tardieu 
indicates. 

It is already more than a year ago since I left the 
direction of the Italian Government, and the French 
Press no longer accused me of being in perfect 
agreement with Lloyd George, yet Poincare wrote 
on August 1, 1920: 

The other day Mr. Asquith stated, before the House of 
Commons, "Whatever kind of language one employs, the 
Conference of Spa has actually been a conference for the 
revision of the conditions of the Treaty." "Stop!" said 
Lloyd George. ' ' That is a very grave statement considering 
the effect which it may produce in Prance. I can not 
allow it to pass without contradicting it." A contradic- 
tion made formally, merely as a courtesy to us, which, 
unfortunately, does not change at all the substance of 
things. Each time the Supreme Council met, they left 
on the table of the Resolutions some scattered bits of the 
Treaty. 

No kind of high-handedness, no combined effort, 
will ever be able to keep afloat absurdities like the 
dream of the vast indemnity, the Polish program, 
the hope of annexing the Saar, etc. As things go 
there is almost more danger for the victors than for 
the vanquished. He who has lost all has nothing to 
lose. It is rather the victorious nations who risk all 



THE INDEMNITY 259 

in this disorganized Europe of ours. The conquer- 
ors arm themselves in the ratio by which the van- 
quished disarm, and the worse the situation of our 
old enemies becomes, so much the worse become the 
exchanges and the credits of the victorious Conti- 
nental countries. 

Yet, in some of the exaggerated ideas of France 
and other countries of the Entente, there is not only 
the rancor and anxiety for the future, but a senti- 
ment of well-founded suspicion. After the war the 
European States belonging to the Entente have been 
embarrassed not only on account of the enormous 
internal debts, but also for the huge debts contracted 
abroad. 

If Germany had not had to pay any indemnity and 
had not lost her colonies and merchant marine we 
should have been confronted with the absurd para- 
dox that the victorious nations would have issued 
from the war worn out, with their territories de- 
stroyed, and with a huge foreign debt; Germany 
would have had her territory quite intact, her indus- 
tries ready to begin work again, herself anxious to 
start again her productive force, and in addition 
with no foreign debt, consequently ample credit 
abroad. In the mad struggle to break up Germany 
there was involved not only hatred, but also a quite 
reasonable anxiety which, after all, must be taken 
into consideration. 

Even to-day, three years after the war, Great 
Britain has not paid her debt to America, and 
France and Italy have not paid their debts to Amer- 



260 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

ica and Great Britain. Great Britain could pay mth 
a great effort; France and Italy can not pay 
anyhow. 

According to the accounts of the American Treas- 
ury the Allies' war debt is 9,565 millions of dollars; 
4,277 millions owing from Great Britain, 2,977 mil- 
lions from France, 1,648 millions from Italy, 349 
millions from Belgium, 187 millions from Russia, 61 
millions from Czecho- Slovakia, 26 millions from Ser- 
bia, 25 millions from Rumania, and 15 millions from 
Greece. Up to last July, Great Britain had paid 
back 110 millions of dollars. Since the spring of 
1919 the payment of the interest on the amounts due 
to the American Treasury has been suspended by 
some European States. Between October and No- 
vember, 1919, the amount of the capitalizing and 
unpaid interests of the European States came to 236 
million dollars. The figure has considerably in- 
creased since then. 

According to the Statist (August 6, 1921), the 
Allies' debt to the United States on March 31, 1921, 
amounted to 10,959 million dollars, including the in- 
terests, in which sum Great Britain was interested 
to the amount of 4,775 million dollars and France for 
3,351 million dollars. But the Statist's figures, in 
variance to the official figures, include other debts 
than strictly war debts. 

The debts of the various Allied countries to Great 
Britain on March 31, 1921, according to a schedule 
annexed to the financial statement for 1921-22, pub- 
lished by the British Treasury, came to £1,776,000,- 



THE INDEMNITY 261 

000, distributed as follows: France 557 millions, 
Italy 476 millions, Eussia 561 millions, Belgium 94 
millions, Serbia 22 millions, Portugal, Rumania, 
Greece and other Allies 66 millions. This sum rep- 
resents war debts. But to it must be added the 
£9,900,000 given by Great Britain for the reconstruc- 
tion of Belgium and the loans granted by her for 
relief to an amount of £16,000,000. So, altogether, 
Great Britain's credit to the Allies on March 31, 
1921, was £1,803,800,000, and has since been in- 
creased by the interests. Great Britain had also at 
the same date a credit of £144,000,000 to her 
dominions. 

France has credit of little less than nine billion 
francs, of which 875 millions is from Italy, four bil- 
lions from Russia, 2,250 millions from Belgium, 500 
millions from the Jugo-Slavs, and 1,250 millions 
from other Allies. Italy has only small credits of 
no account. 

Now this situation, by reason of which the victo- 
rious countries of Europe are heavy debtors (France 
has a foreign debt of nearly 30 billions, and Italy a 
debt of more than 20 billions) in comparison with 
Germany, which came out of the war without any 
debt, has created a certain amount of bad feeling. 
Germany would have got on her feet again quicker 
than the victors if she had no indemnity to pay and 
had no foreign debts to settle. 

France's anxieties in this matter are perfectly 
legitimate and must be most seriously considered 
"without, however, producing the enormities of the 
Treaty of Versailles* 



262 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Assuming this, the situation may be stated in the 
following terms: 

1. All the illusions as to the capacity of Germany 
being able to pay have fallen to pieces, and the in- 
demnities, after the absurd demands which tended 
to consider as inadequate the figure of three hun- 
dred and fifty billions and an annual payment of 
from ten to fifteen billions have become an anxious 
unknown quantity, as troublesome to the victors as 
to the vanquished. The German currency has lost 
all control under the force of internal needs, and 
Germany is threatened with failure. The other 
debtors — Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria — ^have 
need of succor, and can pay nothing. Austria has 
need of the most indispensable objects of existence, 
and everything is lacking. 

2. The indemnity which Germany can pay an- 
nually in her present condition can not, calculating 
goods and cash payments altogether, represent more 
than two or three billions at the most. 

3. The victorious countries, such as France, have 
won immense territories and great benefits, yet 
they have not been able to pay the war debts con- 
tracted abroad, and not even the interests. France 
and Italy, being countries of good faith, have demon- 
strated that, if they can not pay, it is absurd to 
demand the payment of much higher sums from 
countries like Germany, which has lost almost all her 
best resources : merchant fleet, colonies and foreign 
organization, etc. 

4. The danger exists that with the aggravation 



THE INDEMNITY 263 

of the situation in the vanquished countries and the 
weakening of the economic structure of Europe, the 
vanquished countries will drag the victor down with 
them to ruin, while the Anglo-Saxon peoples, stand- 
ing apart from Continental Europe, will detach 
themselves more and more from its policy. 

5. The situation which has come about is a rea- 
son for every one to be anxious, and threatens both 
the downfall of the vanquished and the almost inevit- 
able ruin of the victors, unless a way is found of 
reconstructing the moral unity of Europe and the 
solidarity of economic life. 



VI 

EUROPE 'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY 

No rigiit-thinking person has nowadays any doubt 
as to the profound injustice of the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles and of all the treaties which are derived from 
it. But this fact is of small importance, inasmuch as 
it is not justice or injustice that regulates the rela- 
tions between nations, but their interests and senti- 
ments. In the past we have seen Christian peoples, 
transplanted to America, maintain the necessity of 
slavery, and we have seen, and continue to see every 
day, methods of reasoning which, when used by the 
defeated enemy were declared to be fallacious and 
wrong, become in turn, when varied only in form, the 
ideas and the customary life of the conquerors in the 
war — ideas which then assume the quality of liberal 
expressions of democracy. 

If appeals to the noblest human sentiments are not 
made in vain (and no effort of goodness or generos- 
ity is ever sterile), the conviction which is gradually 
forming itself, even in the least receptive minds, that 
the treaties of peace are inapplicable, as harmful to 
the conquerors as to the conquered, gains in force. 
For the treaties are at one and the same time a 

264 



EUEOPE'S RECONSTEUCTION 265 

menace for the conquerors and a paralysis of all 
activity on the part of the conquered, since once the 
economic unity of Continental Europe is broken the 
resultant depression becomes inevitable. 

If many errors have been committed, many errors 
were inevitable. What we must try to do now is to 
limit the consequences of these mistakes in a changed 
spirit. To reconstruct where we see only ruins is 
the most evident necessity. We must also try to sow 
among the nations which have won the war together 
and suffered together the least amount of distrust 
possible. As it is, the United States, Great Britain, 
France, Italy, Japan, all go their oAvn way. France 
has obtained her maximum of concessions, including 
those of least use to her, but never before has the 
world seen her so spiritually isolated as after the 
treaties of Paris. 

What is most urgently required at the moment is 
to change the prevalent war mentality which still 
infects us and overcomes all generous sentiments, 
all hopes of unity. The statement that war makes 
men better or worse is, perhaps, an exaggerated one. 
War, which creates a state of exaltation, hyper- 
trophies all the qualities, all the tendencies, be they 
for good or for evil. Ascetic souls, spirits naturally 
noble, being disposed toward sacrifice, develop a 
state of exaltation and true fervor. How many ex- 
amples of nobility, of abnegation, of voluntary 
martyrdom has not the Avar given us? But in per- 
sons disposed to evil actions, in rude and violent 
spirits (and these are always in the majority), the 



266 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

spirit of violence increases. This spirit, which 
among the intellectuals takes the form of arrogance 
and concupiscence, and in politics expresses itself in 
a policy of conquest, assumes in the crowd the most 
violent forms of class M^ar, continuous assaults upon 
the power of the state, and an unbalanced desire to 
gain as much as possible with the least possible 
work. 

Before the war the number of men ready to take 
the law into their own hands was relatively small; 
now there are many such individuals. The various 
nations, even those most advanced, can not boast a 
moral progress comparable with their intellectual 
development. The explosion of sentiments of vio- 
lence has created in the period after the war in most 
countries an atmosphere which one may call un- 
breathable. Peoples accustomed to be dominated 
and to serve have come to believe that, having be- 
come dominators in their turn, they have the right 
to use every kind of violence against their overlords 
of yesterday. Are not the injustices of the Poles 
against the Germans, and those of the Rumanians 
against the Magyars, a proof of this state of mind? 
Even in the most civilized countries many rules of 
order and discipline have gone by the board. 

After all the great wars a condition of torpor, of 
unwillingness to work, together with a certain rude- 
ness in social relations, has always been noticed. 

The War of 1870 was a little war in comparison 
with the cataclysm let loose by the European War. 
Yet then the conquered country had its attempt at 



EUROPE'S EECONSTRUCTION 267 

Bolshevism, which in those days was called the Com- 
mune, and the fall of its political regime. In the 
conquering country we witnessed, together with the 
rapid development of industrial groups, a quick 
growth in Socialism and the constitution of great 
parties like the Catholic Center. Mutatis mutandis, 
the same situation has sho^vn itself after the 
European War. 

What is most urgently necessary, therefore, is to 
effect a return to peace sentiments, and in the mani- 
festations of government to abandon those attitudes 
which in the peaces of Paris had their roots in hate. 

I have tried, as premier of Italy, as writer, and as 
politician, to regulate my actions by this principle. 
In the first months of 1920 I gave instructions to 
Italy's ambassador in Vienna, the Marquis della 
Torretta, to arrange a meeting between himself and 
Chancellor Renner, head of the Government of 
Vienna. So the chief of the conquered country 
came, together with his ministers, to greet the head 
of the conquering country, and there was no word 
that could record in any way the past hatred and the 
ancient rancor. All the conversation was of the 
necessity for reconstruction and for the development 
of fresh currents of life and commercial activity. 
The government of Italy helped the government of 
Austria in so far as was possible. And in so acting, 
I felt I was doing better work for the greatness of 
my country than I could possibly have done by any 
kind of stolid persecution. I felt that over and be- 
yond our competition there existed the human sor- 



2G8 THE WEECK OF EUEOPE 

row of nations for whom we must avoid fresh shed- 
ding of blood and fresh wars. Had I not left the 
government, it was my intention not only to continue 
in this path, but also to intensify my efforts in this 
direction. 

The banal idea that there exist in Europe two 
groups of nations, one of which stands for violence 
and barbarism — the Germans, the Magyars and the 
Bulgarians — while the other group of Anglo-Saxons 
and Latins represents civilization, must not continue 
to be repeated, because not only is it an outrage on 
truth but an outrage on honesty. Many of the 
noblest and greatest works of the human spirit we 
owe to Germany, and mthout her Europe can not be 
prosperous or tranquil. 

Always to repeat that the Germans are not 
adapted to a democratic regime is neither just nor 
true. Nor is it true that Germany is an essentially 
warlike country, and therefore different from all 
other lands. In the last three centuries France and 
England have fought many more wars than Ger- 
many. One must read the books of the Napoleonic 
period to see with what disdain pacificist Germany 
is referred to — that country of peasants, waiters and 
philosophers. It is sufficient to read the works of 
German writers, including Treitschke himself, to 
perceive for w^hat a long period of time the German 
lands, anxious for peace, have considered France as 
the country always eager for war and conquest. 

Not only am I of the opinion that Germany is a 
land suited for democratic institutions, but I be- 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 269 

lieve that since the fall of the empire democratic 
principles have a wider prevalence there than in any 
other comitry of Europe. The resistance offered to 
the peace of Versailles — that is, to disorganization — 
may be claimed as a merit for the democratic 
parties, which, if they are loyally assisted by the 
States of the Entente, can not only develop them- 
selves but establish a great and noble democracy. 

Germany has accustomed us in history to the 
most remarkable surprises. A century and a half 
ago she was considered as a pacificist nation with- 
out national spirit. She has since then become a 
warlike country with the most pronounced national 
spirit. Early in the seventeenth century there were 
in Germany more than one hundred territories and 
independent states. There was no true national 
consciousness, and not even the violence of the Napo- 
leonic wars, a century after, sufficed to awaken it. 
"What was required was a regular effort of thought, 
a sustained program of action on the part of men 
like Wolff, Fichte and Hegel to awaken a national 
consciousness. Fifty years earlier no one would 
have believed in the possibility of a Germany united 
and compact in her national sentiment. Germany 
passed from the widest decentralization to the 
greatest concentration and the intensest national 
life. Germany mil also be a democratic country if 
the violence of her ancient enemies does not drive 
her into a state of exaltation v,diich mil tend to ren- 
der minds and spirits favorable to a return to the 
old regime. 



270 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

To arrive at peace we must first of all desire 
peace. We must no longer carry on conversations 
by means of military missions, but by means of am- 
bassadors and diplomatic representatives. 

1. — The League of Nations and the Participation 
OF THE Vanquished 

A great step toward peace may be made by ad- 
mitting at once all ex-enemy states into the League 
of Nations. Among the states of European civiliza- 
tion at least 350 millions of persons are unrepre- 
sented in the League of Nations : the United States, 
who has not wished to adhere to it after the Treaty 
of Versailles sanctioned violence; Russia, who has 
not been able to join owdng to her difficult position. 
Austria and Bulgaria have been permitted to join 
the League with a vote in the Assembly. Hungary 
had made the request to the Assembly in 1921 but 
immediately thereafter withdrew it. Germany has 
not asked to join the League of Nations since she 
does not wish to be humiliated by being regarded 
with suspicion as a small people, and the League 
furthermore, after the decision about Upper Silesia, 
has lost some of the little prestige which still re- 
mained to it. The League of Nations was a mag- 
nificent conception in which I have had faith, and 
which I have regarded with sympathy. But a for- 
midable mistake has deprived it of all prestige. 
Clauses 5 and 10 of its originating constitution and 
the exclusion of the defeated have given it at once 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 271 

the character of a kind of Holy Alliance of the con- 
querors established to regulate the incredible rela- 
tions which the treaties have created between 
conquerors and conquered. Wilson had already 
committed the mistake of founding the League of 
Nations without first defining the nations and leav- 
ing to chance the resources of the beaten peoples and 
their populations. The day, however, on which all 
the peoples are represented in the League, the 
United States, without approving the treaties of 
Versailles, St. Germain or Trianon, etc., will feel the 
need of abandoning their isolation, which is harm- 
ful for them and places them in a position of infer- 
iority. And on the day when all the peoples of the 
world are represented, and accept reciprocal pledges 
of international solidarity, a great step will have 
been taken. 

As things stand, the organism of the Reparations 
Commission, established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII 
of the Treaty of Versailles, is an absurd union of 
the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited solely 
in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret 
the treaty in their own fashion, and can even modify 
the laws and regulations in the conquered countries. 
The existence of such an institution among civilized 
peoples ought to be an impossibility. Its powers 
must be transferred to the League of Nations in such 
a manner as to provide guarantees for the victors, 
but guarantees also for the conquered. The sup- 
pression of the Reparations Commission becomes, 
therefore, a fundamental necessity. 



272 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

2. — The Revision of the Treaties 

"When the public, and especially in the United 
States and Great Britain, become convinced that the 
spirit of peace can only prevail by means of an hon- 
est revision of the treaties the difficulties will be 
easily eliminated. But one can not merely speak of 
a simple revision ; it would be a cure worse than the 
evil. During the tempest one can not abandon the 
storm-beaten ship and cross over to a safer vessel. 
It is necessary to return into harbor and make the 
transhipment where calm, or relative calm at any 
rate, reigns. 

Inasmuch as Europe is out of equilibrium, a set- 
tlement, even of a bad kind, can not be arrived at 
offhand. To cast down the present political scaf- 
folding without having built anything would be an 
error. Perhaps here the method that will prove 
most efficacious is to entrust the League of Nations 
with the task of arriving at a revision. When the 
League of Nations is charged "with this work the va- 
rious governments will send their best politicians, 
and the discussion will be able to assume a realizable 
character. 

According to its constitution, the League of Na- 
tions may, in case of war or the menace of war 
(Clause 11), convoke its members, and take all the 
measures required to safeguard the peace of the na- 
tions. All the adhering states have recognized their 
obligation to submit all controversies to arbitration, 
and that in any case they have no right to resort to 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 273 

war before the expiration of a term of three months 
after the verdict of the arbiters or the report of the 
Council (Clause 12). Any member of the League of 
Nations resorting to war contrary to the undertak- 
ings of the treaty which constitutes the League is, 
ipso facto, considered as if he had committed an act 
of war against all the other members of the League 
(Clause 16). 

But more important still is the fact that the As- 
sembly of the League of Nations may invite its 
members to proceed to a fresh examination of treat- 
ies that become inapplicable, as well as of interna- 
tional situations whose prolongation might imperil 
the peace of the world (Clause 19). 

We may therefore revise the present treaties 
without violence and without destroying them. 

It is not necessary to say what must be modified, 
inasmuch as all the matter of this book supplies the 
evidence and the proof. What is certain is that in 
Europe and America, except for an intransigent 
movement running strong in France, every one is 
convinced of the necessity of revision. 

It will be well that this revision should take place 
through the operations of the League of Nations 
after the representatives of all the states, conquer- 
ors, conquered and neutrals, have come to form part 
of it. 

But in the constitution of the League of Nations 
there are two clauses which form its fundamental 
weakness, sections desired by France, whose gravity 
escaped Wilson. 



274 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

Clause 5 declares that, save and excepting con- 
trary dispositions, the decisions of the Assembly or 
of the Council are to be by the unanimous consent 
of the members represented at the meetings. It is 
difficult to imagine anything more absurd. If the 
modification of a territorial situation is being dis- 
cussed, all the nations must agree as to the solution, 
including the interested nation. The League of Na- 
tions is convinced that the Danzig corridor is an 
absurdity, but if France is not of the same opinion 
no modification can be made. Without a change of 
this clause, every honest attempt at revision must 
necessarily break down. 

Clause 10, by which the members of the League 
of Nations pledge themselves to respect and pre- 
serve from external aggression the territorial integ- 
rity and the existing politicial independence of all 
the members of the League, must also be altered. 
This clause, which is profoundly immoral, conse- 
crates and perpetuates the mistakes and faults of 
the treaties. No honest country can guarantee the 
territorial integrity of the states now existing after 
the monstrous parceling out of entire groups of 
Germans and Magyars to other nations, arranged 
mthout scruples and mthout intelligence. No one 
can honestly guarantee the territorial integrity of 
Poland as it stands at present. If a new-risen Rus- 
sia, a renewed Germany, and an unextinguished 
Austria desire in the future a revision of the treaties 
they Avill be making a most reasonable demand to 
which no civilized country may make objection. It 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 275 

is indeed Clauses 5 and 10 which have deprived the 
constitution of the League of Nations of all moral 
credit, which have transformed it into an instrument 
of oppression for the victors, which have caused the 
just and profound disapproval of the most enlight- 
ened men of the American Senate. A League of Na- 
tions with Clauses 5 and 10 and the prolonged ex- 
clusion of the vanquished can not but accentuate the 
criticisms made by all democracies and the aversion 
of the masses. 

But the League of Nations can be altered and can 
become indeed a great force for reconstruction if 
the problem of its functioning be clearly confronted 
and promptly resolved. 

The League of Nations can become a great guar- 
antee for peace on three conditions : 

(a) That it include really and in the shortest 
space of time possible all the peoples, conquerors, 
conquered and neutrals. 

{b) That Clauses 5 and 10 be modified, and that 
after their modification a revision of the treaties be 
undertaken. 

(c) That the Reparations Commission be abol- 
ished and its powers be conferred upon the League 
of Nations itself. 

As it exists at present the League of Nations has 
neither prestige nor dignity; it is an expression of 
the violence of the conquering group of nations. But 
reconstituted and renovated it may become the 
greatest of peace factors in the relations between the 
peoples. 



276 THE WRECK OF EUEOPE 

3. — The Safety of France and the Military 

Guarantees 

In the state of mind which prevails at present 
France has just cause for being uneasy about the 
future. Since the conclusion of the war the United 
States of America have withdra^vn. They concern 
themselves with Europe no more, or only in a very 
limited form and with distrust. The Monroe Doc- 
trine has come into its own again. Great Britain 
watches the decadence of the European Continent, 
but, girt by the sea, has nothing to fear. She is a 
country of Europe, but she does not live the life of 
Europe ; she stands apart from it. Italy, when she 
has overcome the difficulties of her economic situa- 
tion, can be certain of her future. The very fact that 
she stands in direct opposition to no state, that she 
may have competition with various peoples but not 
long-nurtured hatreds, gives Italy a relative secu- 
rity. But France, who has been in less than forty- 
four years twice at war with Germany, has little 
security for her future. Germany and the Germanic 
races increase rapidly in number. France does not 
increase. France, notwithstanding the new territo- 
ries, after her war losses, has probably less inhabi- 
tants than in 1914. In her almost tormented anxiety 
to destroy Germany we see her dread for the future 
— ^more indeed than mere hatred. To occupy with 
numerous troops the left bank of the Ehine and the 
bridgeheads is an act of vengeance ; but in the ven- 
geance there is also anxiety. There are many in 
France who think that neither now nor after fifteen 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 277 

years must the territory of the vanquished be aban- 
doned. And so France maintains in effective force 
too large an army and nourishes too great a rancor. 
And for this reason she helps the Poles in their un- 
justifiable attempt in Upper Silesia, will not allow 
the Germans of Austria to live, and seeks to provoke 
and facilitate all movements and political actions 
which can tend toward the dismemberment of Ger- 
many. 

The British and the Italian view-points are es- 
sentially different. France, which knows it can no 
longer count on the cooperation of Great Britain, 
of the United States, or of Italy, keeps on foot her 
large army, has allied herself with Belgium and Po- 
land, and tries to strangle Germany in a ring of 
iron. The attempt is a vain one and destined to fail 
within a few years, inasmuch as France 's allies have 
no capacity for resistance. Yet, all the same, her 
attempt is derived from a feeling that is not only 
justifiable but just. 

France had obtained at Paris, apart from the 
occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and all the 
military controls, two guaranteeing treaties from 
the United States and from Great Britain: in case 
of unprovoked aggression on the part of Germany, 
Great Britain and the United States pledged them- 
selves to defend France. The British Parliament, 
as we have seen, approved the treaty provisionally 
on the similar approbation of the United States, But 
as the latter has not approved the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles, and has not even discussed the guarantee 
*T*ftaty, France has now no guarantee treaty. 



278 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

If we are anxious to realize a peace politic two 
things are necessary : 

1. That France has security, and that for twenty 
years at least Great Britain and Italy pledge them- 
selves to defend her in case of aggression. 

2. That the measures for the disarmament of the 
conquered states be maintained, maybe with some 
tempering of their conditions, and that their execu- 
tion and control be entrusted with the amplest pow- 
ers to the League of Nations. 

No one can think it unjust that the parties who 
provoked the war or those who have, if not the en- 
tire, at least the greatest share of responsibility, 
should be rendered for a certain time harmless. The 
fall of the military caste in Germany and the forma- 
tion of a democratic society will derive much help 
from the abolition, for a not too brief period of time, 
of the permanent army, and this will render pos- 
sible, at no distant date, an effective reduction of 
the armaments in the victorious countries. 

Great Britain has the moral duty to proffer a 
guarantee already spontaneously given. Italy also 
must give such a guarantee if she wishes truly to 
contribute toward the peace of Europe. 

As long as Germany has no fleet, and can not put 
together an artillery and an aviation corps, she can 
not represent a threat. 

Great Britain and Italy can, however, only give 
their guarantees on the condition that they guaran- 
tee a proper state of things and not a continued con- 
dition of violence. The withdrawal of all the troops 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 279 

from the Rhine ought to coincide with a clear defini- 
tion concerning the fate of the Germans of Austria 
and the Germans detached from Germany without 
motive. Such a retirement must coincide with the 
definition of the territory of the Saar, and the as- 
signing, pure and simple, of Upper Silesia to Ger- 
many and the end of all the insupportable controls 
and the indemnity regulations. 

Although I am myself opposed to any pledge bind- 
ing Italy for too long a period, I am of opinion that 
it is perfectly right that Great Britain and Italy 
should make this sacrifice for the peace of Europe. 

But no guarantee is possible, either for Great 
Britain or Italy, until the most essential problems be 
resolved in the justest manner by means of straight- 
forward and explicit understandings. 

Italy's leaning toward British policy on the Con- 
tinent of Europe depends on the fact that Great 
Britain has never Avished or tolerated that any Con- 
tinental state should have a hegemony over others. 
And, therefore, she has found herself at differ- 
ent epochs ranged against France, Germany and 
Russia. 

England is in the Mediterranean solely to secure 
her passage through it, not to dominate it. She con- 
tinues to follow the great policy by which she has 
transformed her colonies into dominions, and, in 
spite of errors, she has always shown the greatest 
respect for the liberty of other peoples. 

But Europe will not have peace until the three 
progressive countries of the Continent, Germany, 



280 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

France and Italy, find a way of agreement which 
can reunite all their energies in one common effort. 

Russia has conceived the idea of having the hege- 
mony of Europe ; Germany has indeed had the illu- 
sion of such a hegemony. Now this illusion pene- 
trates certain French elements. Can a people of 
forty million inhabitants, who are not increasing, 
who already find difficulties in dominating and con- 
trolling their immense colonies, aspire to hegemonic 
action, even taking count of their great political 
prestige? Can France lastingly dominate and men- 
ace a country like Germany, which at no distant date 
will have a population double that of France ? 

The future of European civilization requires that 
Germany, France and Ital}^, after so much disaster, 
find a common road to travel. 

The first step to be taken is to give security of 
existence and of reconstruction to Germany ; the sec- 
ond, to guarantee France from the perils of a not 
distant future ; the third, to find at all costs a means 
of accord between Germany, France and Italy. 

But only vast popular movements and great cur- 
rents of thought and of life can work effectively in 
those cases where the labors of politicians have re- 
vealed themselves as characterized by uncertainty 
and as being too traditional. Europe is still under 
the dominion of old spirits which often enough dwell 
in young bodies and, therefore, unite old errors with 
violence. A great movement can only come from 
the intellectuals of the countries most menaced and 
from fresh popular energies. 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 281 

4. — Regulating Inter- Allied Debts, Germany's 
Indemnity and That op the Defeated Countries 

These two problems are closely connected. 

The victorious countries demand an indemnity 
from the conquered countries which, except Ger- 
many, who has a great productive force even in her 
hour of difficulties, are in extreme depression and 
misery. 

Great Britain is in debt to the United States, and 
France, Italy and minor nations are in their turn 
heavy debtors to the Americans and to Great 
Britain. 

The experience of the last three years has shown 
that, even with the best will, none of the countries 
owing money to the Entente has been able to pay its 
debts or even the interest. With an effort Great 
Britain could pay; France and Italy will never be 
able to, and have, moreover, exchanges which consti- 
tute a real menace for the future of each. 

The fact that France and Italy, although they 
came out of the war victoriously, have not been able 
to pay their debts or even the interest on them is the 
proof that Germany, whose best resources have been 
taken away from her, can only pay an indemnity 
very different from the fantastic figures put for- 
ward at the time of the Conference of Paris, when 
even important political men spoke of monstrous 
and ridiculous indemnities. 

The problem of the Inter- Allied debts, as well as 
that of the indemnity, will be solved by a certain 



282 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

sacrifice on the part of all who participated in the 
war. 

The credits of the United States amount to almost 
48 billions of lire or francs at par, and the credits 
of Great Britain to 44 billions. Great Britain owes 
about 21 billions to the United States and is in turn 
creditor for some 44 billions. She has a bad debt 
owing from Russia for more than 14 billions, but 13 
billions are owing from France, about 12 billions 
from Italy, and almost 2i4 billions from Belgium. 
Great Britain, in other words, could well pay her 
debt to the United States, ceding the greater part 
of her credits toward France and Italy. 

But the truth is that, while on the subject of the 
German indemnities, stolid illusions continue to be 
propagated (perhaps now with greater discretion), 
neither France nor Italy is in a position to pay its 
debts. 

The most honest solution, which, intelligently 
enough, J. M. Keynes has seen from the first, is that 
each of the Inter- Allied countries should renounce its' 
state credits toward countries that were allies or 
associates during the war. The United States of 
America are creditors only; Great Britain has lent 
double what she has borrowed. France has received 
on loan three times as much as she has lent to others. 

The credits of France are for almost two-thirds 
credits on which she can not draw; the credits of 
Great Britain, since 14 billions are in Russia, may, 
to the extent of a third, be written off as bad debts. 
The true and honest solution is therefore the entire 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 283 

cancellation of the Inter- Allied debts, that is to say, 
of the debts between the Allied and Associated Gov- 
ernments contracted during the war. 

France and Italy would be the chief gainers by 
this provision. Great Britain would scarcely either 
benefit or lose, or, rather, the benefit accruing to her 
would be less in so much as her chief credits are to 
Russia. 

The United States would doubtless have to bear 
the largest burden. But when one thinks of the 
small sacrifice which the United States has made in 
comparison with the efforts of France and Italy 
(and Italy was not obliged to enter the war), the 
new sacrifice demanded does not seem excessive. 

During the war the United States of America, who 
for three years furnished food, provisions and arms 
to the countries of the Entente, absorbed the greater 
part of their available resources. Not only are the 
states of Europe debtors, but so are especially the 
private citizens who have contracted debts during 
or after the war. Great Britain during the war had 
to sell at least twenty-five billions (lire) of her for- 
eign securities. The United States of America, on 
the contrary, have immensely increased their re- 
serves. 

But this very increase is harmful to them, inas- 
much as the capacity for exchange of the states of 
Europe has been much reduced. The United States 
now risk seeing still further reduced, if not de- 
stroyed, this purchasing capacity of their best 
clients ; and this finally constitutes for America in- 



284 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

finitely greater damage than the renouncing of all 
their credits. 

To reconstruct Germany, to intensify exchange of 
goods with the old countries of Austria-Hungary 
and Russia, to settle the situation of the exchange of 
goods with Italy and the Balkan countries is much 
more important for the United States and the pros- 
perity of its people than to demand payment or not 
demand payment of those debts incurred in the 
common cause. 

I will speak of the absurd situation which has 
come about. Czecho-Slovakia and Poland unwill- 
ingly indeed fought against the Entente, which has 
raised them to free and autonomous states ; and not 
only have they no debt to pay, being now in the 
position of conquerors, or at least allies of the con- 
querors, but they have, in fact, scarcely any foreign 
debts. 

The existence of enormous war debts is, then, 
everywhere a menace to financial stability. No one 
is anxious to repudiate his debts in order not to suf- 
fer in loss of dignity, but almost all know that they 
can not pay. The end of the war, as Keynes has 
justly written, has created a situation in which all 
owe immense sums of money to one another. Ger- 
many owes an enormous sum to the Allies; the 
Allies owe an enormous smn to England; England 
owes an enormous sum to the United States. The 
holders of loans in every country are creditors for 
vast sums upon the state, and the state, in its turn, 
is creditor for enormous sums upon the taxpayers. 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 285 

The whole situation is highly artificial and irritat- 
ing. We shall be unable to move unless we succeed 
in freeing ourselves from this chain of paper which 
keeps the world from breathing freely. 

The work of reconstruction can begin by an- 
nulling the Inter- Allied debts. 

If it is not thought desirable to proceed at once 
to annulment, there remains only the solution of in- 
cluding them in the indemnity which Germany must 
pay in the measure of twenty per cent., allocating 
a proportioned quota to each country which has made 
loans to Allied and Associated Governments on ac- 
count of the war. In round figures the Inter- Allied 
loans come to one hundred billions. They can be 
reduced to twenty, and then each creditor can re- 
nounce his respective credit upon allies or associates 
and participate proportionately in the new credit 
toward Germany. Such a credit, bearing no inter- 
est, could only be demanded after the payment of all 
the other indemnities, and would be considered in 
the complete total of the indemnities. 

All the illusions concerning the indemnities are 
now fated to disappear. They have already van- 
ished for the other countries; they are about to 
vanish in the case of Germany. 

Nevertheless it is right that Germany should pay 
an indemnity. Bismarck after the War of 1870, 
asked five billions, no small sum from the con- 
quered. The recent war was far greater, and this is 
the reason for asking more ; but the conquered have 
come forth much more impoverished and this is the 



286 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

reason for asking proportionately less. Yet, if the 
conquerors can not meet their foreign debts, how can 
the vanquished clear the vast indemnity asked? 
Each passing day demonstrates more clearly the 
misunderstanding of the indemnity. The non-ex- 
perts have not learned financial technique, but 
common sense tells them that the golden nimbus 
which has been trailed before their eyes is only a 
thick cloud of smoke that is slowly dissipating. 

I have already said that the real damages to re- 
pair do not exceed forty billions of gold marks and 
that all the other figures are pure exaggerations. 

If it be agreed that Germany accept twenty per 
cent, of the Inter- Allied debt, the indemnity may be 
raised to sixty billions of francs at par, to be paid 
in gold marks. 

But we must calculate for Germany's benefit all 
that she has already given in immediate marketable 
wealth. Apart from her colonies, Germany has 
given up all her merchant marine fleet, her sub- 
marine cables, much railway material and war ma- 
terial, government property in ceded territory 
without any diminution of the amount of public 
debts, etc. Without taking account, then, of the 
colonies and her magnificent commercial organiza- 
tion abroad, Germany has parted with at least 
twenty billions. If we were to calculate what Ger- 
many has ceded with the same criteria with which 
the conquering countries have calculated their 
losses, we should arrive at figures much surpassing 
these. We may agree in taxing Germany with an 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 287 

indemnity equivalent in gold marks to sixty billions 
of francs at par — an indemnity to be paid in the 
following manner: 

(a) Twenty billions of francs to be considered 
as already paid in consideration of all that Germany 
has ceded in consequence of the treaties. 

(b) Twenty billions from the indemnity which 
Germany must pay to her conquerors, especially in 
coal and other materials, according to the propor- 
tions already established. 

(c) Twenty billions — after the payment of the 
debts in the second category to be taken over by 
Germany — as part of the reimbursement for coun- 
tries which have made credits to the belligerents of 
the Entente: that is, the United States, Great 
Britain and France, in proportion to the sums lent. 

In what material can Germany pay twenty bil- 
lions in a few years! Especially in coal and in ma- 
terial for repairing the devastated territories of 
France. Germany must pledge herself for ten years 
to consign to France a quantity of coal at least equal 
in bulk to the difference between the annual produc- 
tion before the war in the mines of the north and in 
the Pas de Calais and the production of the mines in 
the same area during the next ten years. She must 
also furnish Italj^ — who, after the heavy losses sus- 
tained, has not the possibility of effecting exchanges 
— a quantity of coal that mil represent three- 
quarters of the figures settled upon in the Treaty of 
Versailles. "We can compel Germany to give to the 
Allies for ten years, in extinction of their credits, at 



288 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

least five hundred millions a year in gold, with priv- 
ileges on the customs receipts. 

This systematization, which can only be imposed 
by the free agreement of the United States and 
Great Britain, would have the effect of creating ex- 
cellent relations. The United States, canceling 
their, in great part, impossible debt, would derive 
the advantage of developing their trade and indus- 
try, and thus be able to guarantee credits for private 
individuals in Europe. It would also be of advan- 
tage to Great Britain, who would lose nothing. 
Great Britain has about an equal number of debits 
and credits, with, this difference, that the debits are 
secured, while the credits are, in part, unsecured. 
France's credits are proportionately the worst and 
her debits largest, almost twenty-seven billions. 
France, liberated from her debt, and in a position 
to calculate on a coal situation comparable with that 
of before the war and with her new territories, 
would be in a position to reestablish herself. The 
cancellation of twenty-seven billions of debt, a pro- 
portionate share in twenty billions, together with all 
that she has had, represents on the whole a sum that 
perhaps exceeds fifty billions. Italy would have the 
advantage of possessing for ten years the minimum 
of coal necessary to her existence, and would be lib- 
erated from her foreign debt, which amounts to 
much more than she can possibly hope for from the 
indemnity. 

Such an arrangement, or one like it, is the only 
way calculated to allow Europe to set out again on 



EUEOPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 289 

the path of civilization and to reestablish slowly that 
economic equilibrium which the war has destroyed 
mth enormous damage for the conquerors and the 
certain ruin of the vanquished. 

But, before speaking of an indemnity, the Repa- 
rations Commission must be abolished and its func- 
tions handed over to the League of Nations, while 
all the useless controls and other hateful vexations 
must be ended. 

While the Allied troops' occupation of the Rhine 
costs Germany 1,600,000 gold marks a year, it is 
foolish to speak of reconstruction or indemnity. 
Either all occupation must cease or the expenses 
ought not to exceed, according to the foregoing 
agreements, a maximum of eighty millions at par, or 
even less. 

We shall, however, never arrive at such an ar- 
rangement until the Continental countries become 
convinced of two things: first, that the United 
States will grant no credits under any form; sec- 
ondly, that Germany, under the present system, will 
be unable to pay anything and will collapse, drag- 
ging down to ruin her conquerors. 

Among many uncertainties these two convictions 
become ever clearer. 

If in all countries the spirit of insubordination 
among the working classes is increasing, the state 
of mind of the German operatives is quite remark- 
able. The workmen almost everywhere, in face of 
the enormous fortunes which the war has created 
and by reason of the spirit of violence working in 



290 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

them, have worked with bad spirit after the war be- 
cause they have thought that a portion of their labor 
has gone to form the profits of the industrials. It 
is useless to say that we are dealing here with an 
absurd and dangerous conception, because the profit 
of the capitalist is a necessary element of produc- 
tion, and because production along communist lines, 
wherever it has been attempted, has brought ruin 
and misery. But it is useless to deny that such a 
situation exists, together with the state of mind 
which it implies. We can well imagine, then, the 
conditions in which Germany and the vanquished 
countries find themselves. The workmen, who in 
France, England and Italy exhibit in various de- 
gree and measure a state of intractability, in Ger- 
many have to face a situation still graver. When 
they work they know that a portion of their labor 
is destined to go to the victors, another part to the 
capitalist, and finally there will remain something 
for them. Add to this that in all the beaten countries 
hunger is wide-spread, with a consequent diminution 
of energy and work. 

No reasonable person can explain how humanity 
can continue to believe in the perpetuation of a sim- 
ilar state of things for another thirty or forty years 
and even longer. 

In speaking of the indemnity which Germany can 
pay, it is necessary to consider this special state of 
mind of the operatives and other categories of 
producers. 

Henceforth Europe must count upon its o^vn 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 291 

strength. Even if there shall be total or part can- 
cellation of Inter- Allied debts, there will be a lack of 
other income, since Europe has been transformed 
through the war from a creditor to a debtor 
continent. 

But the mere announcement of the settling of the 
indemnity, of the immediate admission of the van- 
quished nations into the League of Nations, of the 
settling the question of the occupation of the Rhine, 
and of the firm intention to modify the constitution 
of the League of Nations, according it the powers 
now held by the Reparations Commission, will im- 
prove at once the market and signalize a definite 
and assured revival. 

The United States made a great financial effort 
to assist their associates, and in their own interests, 
as well as for those of Europe, they would have done 
badly to have continued with such assistance. "When 
the means provided by America come to be employed 
to keep going the anarchy of Central Europe, 
Rumania's disorder, Greece's adventures and Po- 
land's acts of violence, together with Denikin's and 
Wrangel's restoration attempts, it is better that all 
help should cease. In fact, Europe has begun to 
reason a little better than her governments since the 
financial difficulties have increased. 

The fall of the mark and Germany's profound 
economic depression have already destroyed a great 
part of the illusions on the subject of the indemnity, 
and the figures with which for three years the public 
has been humbugged no longer convince any one. 



292 THE WEECK OF EUROPE 

5. — Forming New Connections with Russia 

Among the States of the Entente there is always 
a fundamental discord on the subject of Russia. 
Great Britain recognized at once that if it were im- 
possible to acknowledge the Soviet Government it 
was a mistake to encourage attempts at restoration. 
After the first moments of uncertainty Great Britain 
has insisted on temperate measures, and notwith- 
standing that during the war she made the largest 
loans to the Russian Government (more than four- 
teen billions of francs at par, while France only lent 
about four billions), she has never put forward the 
idea that, as a condition precedent to the recognition 
of the Soviet Government, a guarantee of the repay- 
ment of the debt was necessary. Only France has 
had this mistaken idea, which she has forced to the 
point of asking for the sequestration of all gold sent 
abroad by the Soviet Government for the purchase 
of goods. 

Wilson had already stated in his fourteen points 
what the attitude of the Entente toward Russia 
ought to be, but the attitudes actually assumed have 
been of quite a different order. 

The barrier that Poland wants to construct be- 
tween Germany and Russia is an absurdity which 
must be swept away at once. Having taken away 
Germany's colonies and her capacities for expansion 
abroad, we must now direct her toward Russia where 
alone she can find the outlet necessary for her enor- 
mous population and the debt she has to carry. The 



EUROPE'S RECONSTRUCTION 293 

blockade of Russia, the barbed wire placed round 
Russia, have damaged Europe severely. This block- 
ade has resolved itself into a blockade against the 
Allies. Before the present state of economic ruin 
Russia was the great reservoir of raw materials ; she 
was the unexplored treasure toward which one went 
with the confidence of finding everything. Now, 
owing to her effort, she has fallen ; but how large a 
part of her fall is due as much to the Entente as to 
her action during the war and since 1 For some time 
now even the most hidebound intelligences have rec- 
ognized the fact that it is useless to talk of entering 
into trade relations with Russia without the cooper- 
ation of Germany, the obvious ally in the vast task 
of renovation. Similarly, it is useless to talk of 
reattempting military maneuvers. While Germany 
remains disassociated from the work of reconstruc- 
tion and feels herself menaced by a Poland that is 
anarchical and disorderly and acts as an agent of the 
Entente, while Germany has no security for her 
future and must work with doubt and with rancor, 
all attempts to reconstruct Russia will be vain. The 
simple and fundamental truth is just this: One can 
only get to Moscow by passing through Berlin. 

If we do not wish conquerors and conquered to 
fall one after the other, and a common fate to reunite 
those who for too long have hated one another and 
continue to hate one another, a solemn word of peace 
must be pronounced. 

Austria, Germany, Italy, France are not diverse 



294 THE WRECK OF EUROPE 

phenomena; they are different phases of the same 
phenomenon. All Europe will go to pieces if new 
conditions of life are not found, and the economic 
equilibrium profoundly shaken by the war reestab- 
lished. 

I have sought in this book to point out in all sin- 
cerity the things that are in store for Europe ; what 
perils menace her and in what way her regeneration 
lies. In my political career I have experienced 
much bitterness; but the campaign waged against 
me has not disturbed me at all. I know that wisdom 
and life lie only in one course, and I have no need 
to modify anything that I have done, either in my 
propaganda or in my attempt at human regenera- 
tion, convinced as I am that I am serving both the 
cause of my country and the cause of civilization. 
Blame and praise do not disturb me, and the agita- 
tions promoted in the heart of my country will not 
modify in any way my conviction. On the con- 
trary, they will only reinforce my will to follow 
along the same line. 

Truth, be it only slowly, makes its way. Though 
now the clouds are blackest, they will shortly dis- 
appear. The crisis which menaces and disturbs 
Europe so profoundly has created alarm even in the 
less thoughtful spirits; Europe is still in the phase 
of doubt, but after the cries of hate and fury, doubt 
signifies a great advance. From doubt the truth 
may come forth at last. 

THE END 



INDEX 



Adrianople passes to the Greeks, 177. 

Adriatic program, Italy's, 245. 

Albania, Italy's expedition to, 151. 

Alexander the Great, 28, 176, 

AUenstein, a plebiscite for, 124. 

Allies, war debt of: to France, 261; to Great Britain, 260; to United 

States, 264; effect on Allies if canceled, 288; Keynes's solution, 

282. 
Alsace-Lorraine: annexation of, 41, 122; restitution of, 56. 
America, see United States. 

Apponyi, Count, and Treaty of Trianon, 168-170. 
Arabia, Turkey's losses in, 173. 
Armament, reduction of, 55. 
Armenia: and Conference of San Eemo, 180-181; and Entente, 

180-182. 
Armistice: terms of, 43-49; three words change tenor of, 77-82; 

196, 197, 201, 202. 
Army of Occupation, 116-119, 276. 

Asia Minor: and Entente, 57; Turkey's losses in, 173. 
Australasia, British possessions in, 12. 
Australia, a part of British Dominion, 12. 
Austria: army, 133; civilizing influence of, 7; loses access to sea, 

136; post-war plight, 136; 171. 
Austria-Hungary, army of 1913, 133; post-war finances, 192, 195; 

States of, 247; and Versailles Treaty, 56. 
Azerbajan, 181. 

Balkan Wars, 84. 

Beethoven, 4. 

Bela Kun, 170. 

Belgium: acquisition of German territory, 41, 53; army, 138; in- 
demnity, 186, 210; pre-war birth and death rate, 254; post-war 
finances, 192; violation of, 29, 230; war debt, 260; wealth of, 
220. 

Bernhardi, General von, mad writings of, 86. 

Bismarck, 4, 29, 89. 

Bolshevism, definition of, 86. 

Bolshevik Government, 148 et seq. 

Briand, M.; and Moutenegro, 248; statements to United States, 25, 
26. 

295 



296 INDEX 

Bridgeheads, German, occupation of, 117 et seq. 
British colonies before the war, 12. 
Budapest, conditions in, 135; mortality, 166. 
Bulgaria: army, 133; post-war conditions, 171, 172. 
Billow, Von, 29. 

Caesar, Julius, 28. 

Canada, part of British Dominion, 12. 

Cilicia, 173. 

Civilization, evolution of, 64. 

Clemenceau, M. : 19, 65; fall of, 257; Germany and Bolshevism, 102; 
hatred of Germany, 107; an individualist, 110; indemnity, 
207, 208; informs Lloyd George of Poincare's letter, 121; mili- 
tary guarantees, 119; note to Lloyd George, 108; occupation of 
Germany, 120; Peace Conference: influence, 110-112, peace with 
Germany, 103-104, reparation, 76-77; reply to Lloyd George's 
memorandum of 1919, 101-105 j territorial partition of Germany, 
102. 

Coal fields of Germany, 54, 185. 

Colonial rights and the Versailles Treaty, 55. 

Colonies: British, 12; German pre-war, 53; Germany loses hers, 55. 

Commission for Danube, see Dannie Commission. 

Commission for Eeparation, see Reparation Commission. 

Communist system, Eussian failure of, 148. 

Conference of Brussels, 219. 

Conference of London, 134, 141, 219. 

Conference of Paris, 30. 

Conference of San Eemo and Armenia, 134; 180-182. 

Constantine, King of Greece, return of, 177. 

Constantinople: retained by Turks, 178; Eussia's desire for, 27, 88; 
subject to international control, 172; the Treaty of Sevres, 
172, 173. 

Crispi, 13. 

Crotia and London Agreement, 71. 

Cyrenaica, 84. 

Czecho-Slovakia : army, 137; creation of State, 190; war debt, 250. 

Dalmatia, and London Agreement, 72, 

Danube Commission, expense of, 135. 

Danzig, allotted to Poland, 57, 134, 145, 169. 

Dardanelles, the freedom of, Versailles Treaty, 57. 

De Foville 's estimate of wealth of France, 220. 

Denikin, 157, 162. 

Denmark, acquires North Schleswig, 41. 

Disarmament, conditions of, fulfilled by Germany, 116, 119, 131. 

Disease and aftermath of war, 136, 152, 161, 164, 167, 217, 242. 

Duchy of Muscovy, 8. 



INDEX 297 

Economic barriers, removal, 55. 

England's greatness, 63. 

Entente: and Armenia, 180; attitude toward war and treaty, 25; 
disagreement among, 21 ; and Eussia, 148, 158. 

Erzeroum, Musselman population of, 180. 

Esthonia, 164. 

Eupen, ceded to Belgium, 41. 

Europe : area, 129 ; effect of treaty on morals, 23 ; population, 254- 
255; financial difficulties, 247 et seq.; increased armament, 140; 
monarchies before the war, 83; need for solidarity, 16; pre- 
war conditions, 14; post-war conditions, 20-23; reconstruction 
and peace policy, 264 et seq.; results of war, 17; ripe for war, 31. 

European States, war debts of, 260. 



Ferenzi, statistics about Hungary, 167. 

Fezzan, 84. 

Fichte, 269. 

Financial and economic clauses of peace treaty, 44 et seq. 

Finland, 164. 

Fiume, Italy's position, 70; London Agreement, 70. 

Foch, Marshal: 214; military commission, 116; peace treaty, 116; 
unconstitutional act of, 118. 

Fourteen Points, see Woodrow Wilson. 

France: acquired Alsace-Lorraine, 41, Saar Basin, 44, 52, 122, 182; 
alliances, 252 ; army and military budget, 137 ; and Bolshevik 
Government, 158; a creditor country, 12; colonial empire, 12; 
demands at Peace Conference, 112 et seq.; fear of future, 276; 
finances, 192, 194, 195, 220, 225, 260, 262; indemnity, 76, 
121, 200 et seq.; invasion of right bank of Rhine, 142; naval 
budget, 143, 144; object in war, 246; post-war army, 137; post- 
war conditions, 241; post-war finances, 192-5; post-war private 
wealth, 220; pre-war status, 12, birth and death rate and popu- 
lation, 254, 255; purport at Peace Conference, 117, 125; recog- 
nizes government of Wrangel, 157; reparation, 126; and Euhr, 
141, 185 ; safety and military guarantees, 276 et seq. ; shrewd- 
ness, 201, 202; treaties with United States and Groat Britain, 
277; unjustness to Germany, 251; violation of treaty, 141, 142; 
war debt, 260; Avealth, 220. 

Franco-Prussian War, the: 255; indemnity demanded by victors, 206; 
unjust terms of Prussia, 64. 

Frankfort, Treaty of, compared with Versailles Treaty, 64. 

Frederick the Great, 4. 

Freedom of the seas and the peace treaties, 54. 

French-American treaty, 120. 

French-English treaty, 129. 

French territories, liberation o£, 56. 

Frontiers, changed conditions of, 53. 



298 INDEX 

George, Lloyd: armament, 98; army of occupation, 96; denounces 
economic manifesto, 141 ; European unrest, 94 ; fears Germany 
will become Bolshevik, 95; Germany's admission to League of 
Nations, 99; memorandum for Peace Conference, 91 et seq.; 
military guarantees, 117; need for just terms, 99; occupation of 
Germany, 91; Paris Conference, 69, 114; Poland, 186, 188; 
position at Paris Conference, 70; proposed trial of Kaiser, 203; 
reparation, 76, 203; role of League of Nations, 99; Eussia, 100, 

Georgia: in hands of Bolsheviks, 150; Italy prepares expedition to, 
149-152. 

German- Austria : army of, 137; loses access to sea, 135; plight of, 
166. 

Germany: acceptance of Armistice, 20, 80; Allies' demands for in- 
demnities, 200 et seq.; annulment of her treaties, 41; army, 
137; coal production, post- and pre-war, 46, 186; destruction of 
Heligoland, 43; duties on imports, 45; effect of Armistice, 50; 
effect of Peace Treaty, 51-54; effect of President Wilson's 
messages, 33, 37, 49; effect of United States' intervention, 28; 
financial position, 192-195, 262; growth in nationalism, 269; 
harmed by her statesmen, 29; helpless condition, 132, 133; 
inability to pay, 262; indemnity, 281 et seq.; lack of political 
sense, 29, 30; losses: in Great War, 222, coal, 42, iron, 53, lo- 
comotives, 47, sea, 136, ships, 45; necessity for signing Treaty, 
115; occupation of, 118, 235; outlet in Eussia, 295; poverty, 
281; pre-war birth and death rate, 254; post-war plight, 136; 
post-war finances, 192-195; population, 255; property of Ger- 
mans in Alsace-Lorraine, 46; reconstruction of Eussia, 284; 
reduction of army, 116; reparation: ability to pay, 195, 215, 
et seq., 221-225; capitalization, 226-229; imports and exports, 
230-233; indemnity, 262-263; occupation, cost of, 235; terms, 
215, 216; what she has paid, 286; responsibility for war, 86; 
restriction of arms, 43; Eussia, Germany's fear of, 10; Sevres 
Treaty, 179; unification and growth, 2-4; victories, 29; war 
record, 64; weakness in politics, 4. 

Goethe, 4. 

Great Britain: aloofness, 69; army, 139; colonial empire, 12; enters 
war, 32; financial prosperity a detriment, 11; finances, 193, 
259 et seq., 218, 282; general election, 203; imperialism, 12; 
indemnity, 200 et seq. ; insularity, 69 ; Italy, 63 ; naval budget, 
143, 144; pledge of aid to France, 277; population, 254; post- 
war finances, 192, 193, 196; reasons for entering war, 244; 
Treaty of Versailles, 257; war credits, 282; war debts, 260; 
war record, 63. 

Great War: dead, 1; responsibility for, 80 et seq.; result decided by, 
243. 

Greece: Adrianople, 177; army, 138; Entente, 173 et seq.; finances, 
192; gains Bulgarian territory, 171; post-war conditions, 174; 
Sevres Treaty, 174; Turkey, 176; war debt, 260. 



INDEX 299 

Hegel, 269. 

Helf erich, 225. 

Herf, Von, and Poland, 183. 

Hindenburg; 131. 

Holy Alliance, 64. 

House, Colonel: deduction of German Army, 117; reparation at 
Peace Conference, 76, 77. , 

Hughes, William Morris, and indemnity, 203-205. 

Hungary: army, 134, 137; finances, 167; food, 165; mortality, 167; 
population, 165; pre- and post-war area, 165; resources, 166 j 
Eumanian occupation, 165; Treaty of Trianon, 165. 

Hyman and reparation at Peace Conference, 75. 

Indemnity, Germany's ability to pay, 195, 215 et seq., 221. 

Indemnity clause, how inserted, 75 et seq. 

India, British, 12. 

Inter-Allied debts, 281 et seq. 

Iron : Germany 's lack of 6 ; loss of, 53 ; products, 253. 

Italian Socialists visit Kussia, 155. 

Italo-Turkish War, 84. 

Italy: Adriatic policy, 245; Albanian expedition, 151; army, 139, 
246; Balkans, 84; declaration of neutrality, 244; finances, 194, 
234, 256, 281; freight rates affected by Kussia 's dissolution, 
160; Georgia, 152-153; German people, 249; Government of 
Moscow, 161; Great Britain, 63; ineffectiveness at Peace Con- 
ference, 70; interest in Fiume, 70; invasion of Belgium, 245; 
Libyan adventure, 84; London Agreement, 70; Montenegro, 
248; national policy, 250; naval budget, 143, 144; Peace Con- 
ference, 74; population, 255; post-war finances, 192, 193, 194; 
reasons for war, 245; recognition of Soviet, 156; Socialists, 
155-157; sufferings, 246; territories annexed, 248; Triple 
Alliance, 13; war debts, 234, 260. 

Japan, naval budget, 143, 144. 
Jews in Poland, 189. 
Judenic, General, 157. 

Jugo-Slavia: acquires Bulgarian territory, 171; army, 137; claims, 
241; finances, 192; Magyars, 166. 

Kant, Immanuel, 3, 189. 

Kautsky, political documents, 83, 

Keynes, John Maynard: Economic Consequences of the Peace, 67; 
value of, 211; indemnity, 206, 210, 221; Peace Conference, 76, 
212; solution for war debts, 282; tribute to, 212, 213. 

Klagenfurth, 124. 

Klotz, 210. 

Koltchak, Admiral, 157. 

Konigsberg, home of Kant, 189. 

Kowno, claimed by Poland, 188. 



300 INDEX 

Labor, post-war attitude, 289, 290. 

Lansing, Eobert, 67. 

Latvia, 164. 

haw, Bonar: indemnity, 76; occupation of Germany, 119. 

League of Nations: creation of, 42, 58; Danzig, 274; Germany de- 
barred, 270; need for alterations, 275; participation of van- 
quished, 270 et seq.; powers of: in treaties, 273; territorial, 
274; in war, 272; value as moderator, 270; Wilson's error, 27L 

Libyan adventure, 84; Vilna occupied by Poles, 188. 

Lithuania, 164. 

London Agreement and Italy, 70. 

Loadon Conference: 135; discusses economic manifesto, 141. 

Loucheur, 220; indemnity, 209. 

Ludendorff, General, important declaration of, 132. 

Luxemburg iron industry, 53. 



Magyars in Eumania: 165; Treaty of Trianon, 165. 

Malm^dy given to Belgium, 41. 

Marienwerder, a plebiscite for, 124. 

Marne, battle of, 244. 

Mesopotamia, lost by Turkey, 173. 

Military clauses and guarantees of Peace Treaty, 43 et seq., 116 et 

seq., 217. 
Moresnet given to Belgium, 41, 
Montenegro: and Entente, 248; restoration, 27. 
Monroe Doctrine, 276. 

Moscow Government sends gold to Sweden and French action, 158. 
Mussulman population in Turkey, 181. 



Napoleon I: 28; and Poland, 147; 253. 

Napeoleon III, 253. 

Naval budgets, 143. 

Neuilly, Treaty of, 24; 171. 

New Zealand, Britain's share, 12. 

Nicholas II, 3; and Poland, 26; 153. 

Nineteenth Century -wars, 16. 

Nitti, Francesco: Conferences of London and San Eemo, 134, 
141, 180, 218; denounces economic manifesto, 141; Germany's 
responsibility for war, 86; ideals, 267; inclusion of all nations in 
League of Nations, 270 et seq.; indemnity 200 et seq.; Italian 
expedition to Georgia, 152; Italian Socialists, 158; proposed 
trial of Kaiser, 30; receives deputation of German business 
men, 6; Eussia, 146; signs Treaty of Versailles, 60; son a 
prisoner of war, 214, 

Northcliffe Press and indemnity, 203. 

North Schleswig given to Denmark, 41. 



INDEX 301 

Ogier and indemnity, 209. 

Oligantliropy, 12. 

Orlando, 70; and reparation, 76. 

Orlando Ministry, resignation of, 60. 

Ottoman Empire, limited sovereignty to Turkish parts, 57. 

Pact of London, 27, 

Palestine and Treaty of Sevres, 173. 

Paper currency, Germany's pre- and post-war, 51. 

Paris: unfortunate location for Peace Conference, 66; Peace Con- 
ference, 66 et seq., 109 et seq., 206; Supreme Council at, 168; 
welcome to President Wilson, 66. 

Pas de Calais, 287. 

Peace : conditions necessary for, 279, 280 ; summary of existing con- 
ditions, 197. 

Peace Conference: duty of, 67; indemnity, 206; Italian representa- 
tives leave, 75. 

Peace treaties: application, 58; a continuation of war, 25 et seq.; 
effect on Germany, 51 et seq.; a negation of justice, 50, 58, 90, 
110, 264 et seq.; opposition to Fourteen Points, 21, 69, 127; 
origin and aims, 65 et seq.; reparation and indemnity, 124 et 
seq.; revision a necessity, 271. 

Peace Treaty of June, 1919, summary, 40. 

Peasants of Eussia, 161. 

Peter the Great, 8. 

Petrograd, text of Londoii Agreement published in, 71. 

Plebiscite, result in Upper SUesia, 183. 

Plebiscite system, 123. 

Poincare, M. : and Clemenceau, 257; League of Nations, 197; Lloyd 
George's reply to, 121; occupation of Germany, 120; peace 
treaties, 65; Spa Treaty, 288. 

Poland: anarchic condition, 145; army, 138; creation of State, 42, 
145, 146; Danzig, 42, 134, 145; further expansion, 182 et seq.; 
gains by Treaty, 42, 182, 242; greed, 138, 188; Nicholas II, 26; 
plebiscite, 183 et seq.; post-war finances, 192, 195, 284; struggle 
for unity, 22; Treaty of Versailles, 144; treaty with France, 
138, 277; working for ruin, 182. 

Portugal, war debt, 261. 

Progress, war a condition of, 15. 

Public debts of warring nations, 260. 

Reconstruction of Europe: annulment of Inter- Allied debts, 281 
et seq.; Germany's indemnity, 281 et seq.; League of Nations, 
264 et seq.; necessity of forming new connections with Eussia, 
292 et seq.; revision of treaties, 272 et seq.; safety of France 
and military guarantees, 276 et seq. 

Eenner, Chancellor of Vienna, confers with Marquis della Torretta, 
267, 



302 INDEX 

Eeparation clause, origin of, 75 et seq. 

Eeparation, problem of, 215 et seq. 

Eeparations Commissiou : expense of, 135; formation of, 125, 207; 
purpose of, 44, 125; suppression necessary, 271 et seq.; 275, 278. 

Ehine: occupation of, 118 ei seq.; cost to Germany, 235. 

Eiga, hunger and sickness in, 164. 

Euhr, occupation of, 142, 185. 

Eumania: army, 139; evacuation of, 57; financial position, 192, 260; 
gains by Treaty, 247; Magyars in, 253; occupation of Hungary, 
165; war debt of, 260. 

Eussia: army, 140; birth rate, 9, 255; blockade, 292; Bolshevism, 
152; cause of vear, 19; collapse and effect, 27; communism, 
149, 153; effect of Japanese defeat, 10; Entente aids military 
undertakings, 156, 159; financial position, 261, 292; future, 
253; gains in Asia Minor, 151; Germany's fear of, 11; League 
of Nations, 270; Lloyd George, 100; menace to Europe, 83; 
military revolt, 157; mobilization, 83; outlet for Germany, 292; 
peasants, 162; policy of Entente toward, 147, 156 et seq., 292; 
policy of expansion, 88; political center, 80; power of Czar, 9; 
present day plight, 154; probable number of men under arms, 
140; resources, 153; size of pre-war empire, 8; Treaty of 
Sevres, 179; Treaty of Versailles, 56; war debts, 260. 

Eusso-Japanese peace, 115. 

Eusso-Japanese War, 8. 

Saar: American point of view, 124; annexation of, 122; given to 

France, 44, 52, 122, 182; plebiscite, 124. 
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of, 4, 24, 41, 60, 69, 78, 136, 164. 
San Eemo Conference, 134, 151, 180 et seq., 218. 
Schleswig, a plebiscite for, 124. 
Secret diplomacy in peace treaties, 55. 
Serbia: Allied Press, 82; evacuation of, 57; gains by Treaty, 242, 

247; ignorance of London Agreement, 73, 76; responsibility for 

war, 84, 242; Eussian policy, 82, 85; war debt, 26, 192, 260. 
Serbo-Croat States: financial position, 192; outlet to sea, 134. 
Sevres: Treaty of, 24, 60, 134, 172 et seq.; absence of Eussia and 

Germany, 179. 
Silesia, see Upper Silesia. 

Slav States, cosmopolitan population of, 165, 190, 253. 
Smyrna, the Sanjak of, 173 et seq. 
Sonnino, M., at Paris Conference, 75. 
South Africa, British, 11. 
Soviet, recognition refused, 156, 292. 
Spa Conference, 218. 
Starling, Professor, 233. 

States, European, pre- and post-war, 128 et seq., 259. 
Statist, war debts, 260. 
Submarine menace, 70. 
Sweden, Eussian gold sent to, 158, 



INDEX 303 

Tardieu, Andre: guarantees against Germany, 133; occupation of 
Germany, 120; Paris Conference, 70, 109, 111, 113; President 
Wilson, characterized by, 112; reparation, 75; reply to Lloyd 
George, 101; report to Paris Conference, 77; The Truth about 
the Treaty, 67, 70; Versailles Treaty, 257, 272. 

Territorial and Political clauses of Treaty, 40. 

Thrace assigned to Greece, 174. 

Torretta, Marquis della, confers with Chancellor Eenner, 267. 

Trade conditions and Peace Treaty, 51. 

Treaties, peace — see Neuilly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Sevres, Trianon, 
Versailles. 

Treaties with France against Germany's aggression, 118, 119, 277. 

Treaty system, effect on Europe, 18. 

Trianon, Treaty of, 24, 60, 134, 164, 168, 170. 

Triple Alliance, 13, 241. 

"Triplice," see Triple Alliance. 

Tripoli and Italy, 84. 

Tripolitania, 84. 

Turkey: Grand Visier's note, 177; Treaty of Sevres, 173 et seq. 

Turquan, estimate of France's wealth, 220. 

United States: Armenia, 180; Army of Occupation, 118; danger of 
collecting war debts, 283; financial effect of Germany's fall, 
239; France, 277; importance of intervention, 28, 32, 34, 143, 
234; indemnity, 206; League of Nations, 37, 106, 256, 265, 271; 
London Agreement, 73; loss of men in war, 28; naval budget, 
143; post-war finances, 193, 196; reparation, 125; Saar, 124; 
Treaty of Versailles, 243, 276; war credits, 260; see America. 

Upper Silesia: 186 et seq.; iron in, 54. 

Venezelos, M.: 178; fall of, 176; tribute to, 175. 

Versailles: Treaty of, 24, 30, 56, 60, 78, 144, 145, 210; based on, 
144; conditions in Germany as a result of, 131; Danzig cor- 
ridor, 189; injustice of indemnity, 210, 256; Lloyd George, 186; 
ratification, 60; summary, 40 et seq.; United States* feeling, 
243, 276; violation of, 183, 184, 185. 

Vienna: conditions in, 135; wireless station, 136. 

Vissitch, M., and reparation, 76. 

Wachter, Kinderlen, and Russia, 87. 

War: aftermath, 135, 152, 161, 164, 167, 220, 243; debta of Allies, 
191 et seq.; 260 et seq.; 281 et seq.; definition of, 28; devas- 
tation of culture, 17; divided responsibility for, 81; graft of 
commissions, 133; moral effect, 266; necessity for, 15; propa- 
ganda, 89. 

Warfare, modern, 10. 

Wars of last three centuries, 269. 



304 INDEX 

William II: author's aversion to, 3; miles gloriosus, 31; oratory 
harmful to Germany, 5; proposed trial, 30 et seq., 203 et seq., 
responsibility for war, 31, 87. 

Wilson, Woodrow: Armenia, 180; demonstration against, in Italy, 
75; effect of messages oh Germany, 32; Fiume, 241; Fourteen 
Points of, 21, 34 et seq., 145; reparation, 77; Treaty of Ver- 
sailles, 54 et seq.; ignorance of European affairs, 68 et seq.; 
League of Nations, 33, 39, 108; military guarantees, 119; 
reparation, 77; Russia, 147; speech to Senate, 90; territorial 
adjustments, 37 et seq.; welcome at Paris, 60. 

Wolff and Germany, 269. 

Wrangel, General, 55, 148, 157, 



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